I 



HE RICHER 



m m* 



i; f F£ 



.sissg. 









Class J^J/^4 
Book - ,/t -3— 
Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE RICHER LIFE 




THE RICHER LIFE 



BY 



WALTER A.DYER 



GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK. 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE 6> COMPANY 

1911 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT, ig 1 1, BY DODBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

|\0 



$ 



<X rfV 



^ 



Copyright^ iqio, iqii, by The Craftsman Publishing Co: 



^/ 



THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 



2CLA2976i»0 






ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The author desires to make grateful acknowl- 
edgment to The Craftsman, in which these papers 
first appeared; and to its editors, Mr. Gustav 
Stickley and Mrs. Mary Fanton Roberts, who 
encouraged the writing of them. W. A. D. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Richer Life — A Lay Preachment 3 
II. The Vision of Anton, the Clockmaker 14 

III. The Hermit, the Knight, and the 

Jester .39 

IV. The King Who Wished to be Good 66 
V. The Opening of the Eyes of Jasper . 90 

VI. The Prince and the Maddens Three . in 

VII. The Art of Bernice and Agatha . .131 

VIII. The Story of Chtng Wong . . .155 

IX. The Prince, the Pauper, and the 

Golden Mean . . . .173 

X. The Doctor and the Cobbler's Son . 194 

XL A Little Boy and Santa Claus . .214 



THE RICHER LIFE 




THB RICHER LIFE 
A L>ay Preachmerrb 



I were a preacher, I would preach 
the gospel of the richer life — the 
life of the personal human soul. 
I would advocate the quiet 
life, the good life. If I were a 
preacher, or a teacher, or a leader 
of men I would raise my voice 
in behalf of the individual life. 
This is an age of types and 
masses and combinations. We 
speak of labour as a concrete 
thing, of capital, of the child, 
of woman, of the Negro, of the 



THE RICHER LIFE 

immigrant, of the poor, and we 
endeavour to solve their problems 
en masse, by formulating a remedy 
for the ills of a group. The needs 
of the individual are lost sight of 
in contemplating the needs of 
society. The personal, individual, 
human soul is starved while we con- 
sider the great problems of mankind. 
I do not find fault with the preachers 
and teachers and leaders who take 
this grand, broad view of things. 
We need them sorely — we need 
more of them. But I have been 
straining my ears in vain to catch 
the voice of one crying in the wilder- 
ness, "Make peace with thine own 
soul." For, after all, we are individ- 
uals, you and I. We may be a part 
of this movement or that class, and 
as such we share the common prob- 
lems of humanity; but individuals 
we remain to the end of the chapter. 
4 



A LAY PREACHMENT 

You may call this view a selfish one, 
but I maintain that we are by na- 
ture selfish. The struggle for exist- 
ence is selfish. The instinct of 
self-preservation is selfish. We 
can't get away from the personal 
factor. I am more important to 
myself than all the heathen in the 
world. If I have a toothache, my 
interest in child labour in Pennsyl- 
vania wanes. I cannot help it; I 
was born that way. So were you; 
and you will admit it, if you are hon- 
est. And the best form of un- 
selfishness that I know of lies not in 
sacrifice to some great cause, but 
in making the troubles of other 
individuals your own. That is the 
only way you, an individual, can 
really understand them. 
So, while I would sympathize to the 
fullest extent with the great leaders 
of human progress, I, if I were a 
5 



THE RICHER LIFE 

preacher, would seek to influence in- 
dividual consciences and to awaken 
individual souls. 

I attended a dinner, not long since, 
and listened to ringing speeches 
from four great leaders of men — 
Bishop Williams of Michigan, Fran- 
cis J, Heney of San Francisco, Champ 
Clark of Missouri, and Theodore 
Roosevelt of Oyster Bay. Each 
preached his own gospel in his own 
way, but each preached of the na- 
tional life, of righteousness in politics 
and business, of the soul of ninety- 
odd millions. They were thrilling, 
inspiring speeches, but not one of 
them struck home to me and my 
little household on Long Island. 
And I thought that perhaps there 
might be something that they, with 
all their loftiness and breadth of 
view, were overlooking. 
While we are reforming great masses 
6 



A LAY PREACHMENT 

of men, why can we not perhaps 
take a little thought on self -reform? 
If I do not go to the dogs, and if you 
do not go to the dogs, and if we two 
help to keep our neighbour from 
going to the dogs, and if some mill- 
ions of other people could be induced 
to make the same effort, I have a 
feeling that perhaps the country 
wouldn't go to the dogs. 
And I, if I were a preacher, would 
preach the gospel of the quiet life. 
Matthew Arnold had something to 
say once about sweetness and light 
that made somewhat of an impres- 
sion on men, I believe. Aren't we 
neglecting to meditate on the beauty 
and usefulness of sweetness and 
light? Bishop Williams said that 
our Americanism was Hebraic. It 
is. We worship a mighty Jehovah, 
not a kindly Christ. Our national 
life is the apotheosis of storm and 
7 



THE RICHER LIFE 

stress, and he is the greatest reformer 
whose voice is loud enough to be 
heard above the tumult, and whose 
arm is strong enough to beat down 
other strong arms. It is inspiring. 
War is always inspiring. But here 
and there, I fancy, a weary heart is 
saying, "Let us have peace." 
This is my apology for not preach- 
ing national reform and the stren- 
uous life. For, if I were a preacher, 
I would doubtless neglect these great 
duties, and preach to the heart of 
my neighbour, if so I might bring 
some peace and joy and soul awak- 
ening into his life. For I can love 
a man; I find it hard to love a 
race. 

If I were a preacher! I have some- 
times sat in a church and wondered 
if the preacher in the pulpit knew 
what he was preaching and why. I 
have wondered if he had any con- 
8 



A LAY PREACHMENT 

ception of the character and needs 
of the individual souls before him. 
I have wondered if it could ever 
occur to him how little I cared for 
his expounding of doctrines and 
texts. 

Sometimes I have been a little hard 
on the preachers. I have scorned 
their cloistered lives and closed my 
ears to their ineffectual logic; but 
I was wrong. I asked a ministerial 
friend quite frankly, one day, why 
he did not preach better sermons, 
for I knew that he was a thoughtful 
man and did not lack knowledge or 
purpose. 

"You people who write," said he, 
"can take a month or a year to 
crystallize your thoughts. You 
can take the time to wait for in- 
spiration. If a writer like Emerson 
should produce a dozen great essays 
in a lifetime, he would have done 
9 



THE RICHER LIFE 

a man's work. But we preachers 
cannot wait for inspiration. We 
must prepare one, two, or even 
three sermons each week, no matter 
what state of mental depression 
we may be in. And the average 
pastor has enough things in his 
work to cause mental depression. 
It is only the genius like Beecher 
who leads a life of continuous 
inspiration. We cannot all be 
Beechers." 

I was silenced, I must admit, for 
I caught a glimpse of a preacher's 
soul. x\nd very likely, if I were a 
preacher, I would find myself worse 
than the poorest of them. Mean- 
while, however, when the sermon 
is dull and my mind goes wandering, 
I continue to fancy what I would 
preach if I were a preacher. 
I would preach a little less theol- 
ogy and more philosophy, I think — 
10 



A LAY PREACHMENT 

less scripture and more ethics. And 
I believe I would be right in this. 
Christ's miracles were of secondary 
importance. His real influence 
was in His teachings, and those are. 
personal and ethical. 
If I were a preacher, I would study 
the Sermon on the Mount, in season 
and out of season. I would preach 
a sermon on charity, and a sermon 
on love, and a sermon on gentleness, 
and a sermon on kindness, and a 
sermon on courtesy, and a sermon 
on generosity, and a sermon on 
square dealing. I would try to 
understand the lives and hearts of 
those before me, and minister to 
them in a personal, practical way. 
I would try to preach something 
on Sunday that would help to 
sweeten Monday. 

Above all, I would preach the gospel 

of the richer life. I would try to 

11 



THE RICHER LIFE 

teach my congregation to feed their 
souls. I would try to lead their 
thoughts away from material things 
to the life of the spirit within them. 
I would try to show them the in- 
calculable value of their own souls 
to themselves. I would try to point 
out definite, practical, reasonable 
ways in which they might become 
happier in spite of circumstances; 
calmer, braver, less easily disturbed 
by those things which can harm only 
the bodily comfort, not the immor- 
tal soul. 

If I were a preacher 

But since I am not, I must needs 
think the thoughts of a layman. 
And because I find that others, here 
and there, are thinking along these 
same lines, I have ventured to write 
down some of these thoughts, as 
well as I can, in the hope that what 
I have to say may serve to set going 
1% 



A LAY PREACHMENT 

in others mental processes that 
will result in turning the attention 
to the things of the spirit and 
the consequent enrichment of life. 






IS 




tTAeVisiorx of Anion, ihe Clock-Maker 




i\ce upon a time there lived a 
near-sighted and obscure clock- 
maker in an ancient town in 
Flanders. It was in fourteen 
hundred and something, at 
about the time when new conti- 
nents were being discovered, 
and old continents were being 
ransacked for whatever might 
serve to enrich the life of 
Europe. We call it the period 
of the Renaissance, and this is 
the story of the renaissance 
14 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

of Anton, the Flemish clock- 
maker. 

Anton was apprentice to an old 
craftsman who made clocks to help 
very rich people to know the time 
of day. No one but the rich could 
afford to buy clocks in those days, 
so the old clock-maker needed but 
one assistant. They were crude 
clocks with but one hand, but they 
served the purpose. Anton, how- 
ever, had a soul in his body, and he 
became very tired of bending eter- 
nally over his work bench, making 
one-handed clocks for people he 
didn't know. His was a restless 
sort of soul, but a starved one, and 
it didn't know how to show Anton 
the way to better things. 
So Anton decided to find out for 
himself. As he went about the 
streets of a Sunday he heard of the 
good gray monks that lived beyond 
15 



THE RICHER LIFE 

the hill. He was told that they 
were wise and kind, and that they 
made sure their entrance into Heaven 
by many prayers and much fast- 
ing. They were so good that they 
had time enough left from their 
prayers to engage. in scholarly pur- 
suits. In short, they lived an ideal 
kind of existence and one that Anton 
thought would satisfy the cravings 
of his soul. 

So one day Anton left the old clock- 
maker and journeyed over the hill 
to the monastery of the good gray 
monks. They took him in as a lay 
brother and set him to weeding the 
garden; but soon they learned that 
he was skilled with tools, and they 
gave him the task of building the 
new altar in the chapel. 
When the altar was nearly finished, 
the abbot of the monastery came to 
Anton and said: "My son, I perceive 
16 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

that thou hast much cunning. Canst 
thou carve a legend for the front 
of the altar?" 

"I can, Father/' said Anton. 
So the abbot sought for a legend 
that would fit the space on the front 
of the altar, and after much search- 
ing he brought to Anton this : 
"Where there is no Vision, the 
people perish." 

Anton accordingly selected a piece of 
hard, close-grained oak, and began 
to carve the legend. Now An- 
ton possessed enough of the crafts- 
man 's soul to make him strive to 
carve the legend well, and he spent 
many days and took infinite pains. 
And as he worked he said the words 
over and over to himself : 
'Where there is no Vision, the people 
perish." 

He found himself wondering what 
these words meant, and as he carved 

17 



THE RICHER LIFE 

his perplexity grew upon him. At 
last he could contain himself no 
longer, and he went to the abbot. 
"Holy Father/' said he, "I am 
much troubled to know the meaning 
of the words thou hast given me to 
carve." 

Now the abbot had selected the 
legend without great thought. It 
sounded well, and it was the right 
length. So he made answer lightly, 
''Those, my son, are the words of a 
Wise Man of old. They refer to 
that divine guidance which saves 
men's souls, and which comes only 
through prayer and fasting." 
But Anton had prayed and fasted, 
and no Vision had come to him. 
He asked his brother monks to ex- 
plain the words to him, but they 
could not satisfy him, and Anton 
nearly went mad in the endeavour 
to understand. 

18 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

When the carving was complete 
and the altar finished, Anton found 
no more work that interested him. 
He looked about him, and saw the 
monks feasting and fasting, praying 
and working, but he could not dis- 
cover to what purpose. 
"If it be true that without a Vision 
the people perish," he said to him- 
self, "shall we not all perish? Not 
even the good gray monks have a 
Vision. They know not what a 
Vision is." 

So gradually he became dissatisfied 
with the monotonous life of the good 
gray monks, and their tiresome 
prayers and fastings to save their 
souls, until at last he could stand it 
no longer, and, never having taken 
the vows, he left the monastery. 
It was then that he bethought him- 
self of the old clock-maker for whom 
he had worked in the town. He 
19 



THE RICHER LIFE 

remembered how wise he was, and 
he sought the familiar shop. The 
old clock-maker was glad of the re- 
turn of so good a workman, and 
received him joyfully. Then Anton 
told his story — how he had longed 
for something to satisfy his soul, 
how he had failed to find it even 
among the good gray monks, and 
how the words of the legend had 
perplexed him. 

Then spake the wise old clock-maker. 
" A Vision," quoth he, "is something 
good and lofty and desirable which 
the soul may see, and having not, 
may reach forth to obtain. With- 
out a Vision the body may live, but 
the soul is starved. It is death in 
life. Men may eat, and drink, and 
sleep, and laugh, and work, and 
quarrel, and beget children, and die, 
but all to no purpose. They might 
as well die in the first place, and so 

go 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

the Wise Man saith, 'Without a 
Vision, the people perish. '" 
"And what may I do to get a Vision, 
that I may live?" asked Anton. 
"He that seeketh, findeth," replied 
the clock-maker. 

'Where shall I seek?" asked Anton. 
"At thine own work bench," was 
the answer. "Thou hast been to 
the monastery of the good gray 
monks and found no Vision there. 
Thou may'st travel the world over, 
and no Vision will reward thy search. 
Look within thy heart, Anton, even 
into its hidden corners. Whatso- 
ever thou findest that is good and 
worthy, examine it. Thus wilt thou 
find thy Vision. Do thy daily work, 
Anton, and let thy Vision find thee 
working. Then shalt thou be ready 
to receive it, and the meaning of thy 
life and work will be made clear to 
thee." 

«1 



THE RICHER LIFE 

Anton marvelled at the words of the 
wise old man, and pondered them 
in his heart as he went back to work 
at his bench. And every day he 
talked with the old clock-maker, and 
strove to learn, until at last the light 
broke in upon him, and he under- 
stood. For the meaning of the le- 
gend appears only through much 
thought and self-examination. 
A day came when the old clock- 
maker arose no more from his bed, 
and Anton took his place as master 
of the shop. 

"Now," he said, "I will see if I 
can find a way to work with a Vision, 
for I know it is better than to work 
without one." 

Every Sunday he went through the 
market place and talked with his 
fellow-townsmen. He found that 
there were many things good and 
lofty and desirable that were lacking 
22 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

in their lives, but he could discover 
no way to supply them. His soul 
was reaching forth, but it had not 
yet laid hold on a Vision. 
One day in his shop, however, a Vi- 
sion came to him. It was a little 
Vision, to be sure, but it was a be- 
ginning. 

"I cannot give bread to all the poor, 
or bring happiness to the miserable," 
he said. "I know only how to make 
clocks. So I will make a clock for 
the people, that they may have 
what only the rich m&y buy." 
So he set to work and built a huge 
clock, with two hands, like one he 
had seen that came from the South. 
Its face was two cubits across, and 
it was fashioned to run in all weath- 
ers. Beneath the face he carved 
and painted a legend : 
"Where there is no Vision, the 
people perish." 

2S 



THE RICHER LIFE 

In twelve months the clock was done, 
and he received permission to place 
it on the tower in the market place, 
where all men might see it and read 
the time of day. Many came and 
saw, and learned to tell the time 
from the figures on the dial, and the 
clock became famous throughout 
Flanders. 

But there were many in the coun- 
tryside who seldom came to the 
town, and so never were benefited by 
the clock, and it occurred to Anton 
one day that the reason for this was 
that the roads were so poor. He 
was now a man of substance and 
influence in the town, so he went 
to the burgomaster and told him 
that he would like to build better 
roads for the country people to use 
in coming to town. It took him 
a long time to make the fat burgo- 
master see this Vision, but at last 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

he succeeded, and the upshot of the 
matter was that in a few years there 
were fine, smooth roads running in 
all directions. 

Anton's fame spread throughout 
Flanders, and to make a long story 
short, the king at last sent for him 
and made him a counsellor at the 
royal palace. This gave him a 
chance to broaden his Vision. He 
saw a greater and a happier Flanders, 
with the people prosperous in trade 
and industry and art, and when he 
died, full of years and honour, he 
left Flanders a better place because 
of his Vision. Anton the clock- 
maker was one who did not live 
in vain. 

Because we are men and not beasts 
of the field we all have a desire 
within us, however small and ill-nour- 
ished, not to live in vain. That is 
25 



THE RICHER LIFE 

the germ of a Vision, and it is for us 
to say whether or not we shall give 
heed to it and live by it. We may 
be automata, in some respects, but 
we have at least this birthright to 
do with as we choose. If we are 
thoughtful persons, we are asking 
ourselves how we can make our lives 
worth living. That is, after all, 
the great motive underlying human 
history and individual endeavour. 
I submit that the way so to live is 
to formulate and cultivate a Vision. 
That we are alive and needs must 
labour to live is a fact so common- 
place as almost to escape notice. 
That our living and working may 
be in vain is a thought that troubles 
us when we take time to look eternal 
verities in the face. And we must 
take the time; else we are beasts of 
the field, for they, too, live and la- 
bour to live. 

26 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

To us alone of all creatures is given 
the power to enrich our lives by 
taking thought of the spiritual side, 
for it is the spiritual in us that makes 
us men and not beasts. If we neg- 
lect the spiritual, we take a step 
backward toward the monkey and 
the amoeba; if we cultivate it, we 
press on toward our divine goal, 
and open up for ourselves wide 
vistas of a richer and altogether 
more desirable life. To realize 
this is to prepare the way for the 
definite Vision. 

Many men seem to be living and 
working without any Vision. Or, 
if it may be called a Vision, it is 
a mean and sordid one. This is one 
of our American faults. Sometimes 
we Americans wonder what it is 
that makes life in the Old World 
seem mellower and richer. Some 
of us have stopped work long enough 
27 



THE RICHER LIFE 

to take a breath and look about us, 
and we find ourselves wondering 
what it was that made the Eliza- 
bethan period in England a golden 
age. Let us just consider those 
Elizabethans for a moment. They 
seem to have prospered as well as 
we, and yet they managed to get 
their noses away from the grind- 
stone, somehow. They found time 
to live a spacious and varied life. 
They planted England's finest gar- 
dens, built her most luxurious manor- 
houses, wrote her greatest poems 
and plays, fought great battles on 
the seas, set out for adventures in 
the New World — in short, they 
made their lives worth living, and 
when they were gone the world 
found that they had not lived in 
vain. We are accustomed to think 
of them as light-hearted pleasure- 
seekers, but they could not have 
28 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

thus lived and produced results 
without a Vision. 

There once lived a group of later 
Elizabethans in this country. They 
were country gentlemen, soldiers, 
scholars, lawyers, financiers, archi- 
tects, travellers, men of affairs and 
culture. They, too, had a Vision, 
and lived not in vain. Washington, 
Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson — did 
they not live the richer life? Were 
they content to be clock-makers 
or monks? Rest for a moment 
from that pressing business of yours 
and think of it. Did they lack any- 
thing that you stand any chance 
of getting? And did they not have 
vastly more? 

As a people we have had a sort of 
Vision — a commercial Vision — 
and we have made the world to 
stand in wonder because of it. Our 
material progress has been indeed 



THE RICHER LIFE 

phenomenal. But our Vision has 
been a narrow and restricted one. 
It has not enriched our lives as it 
should have done. Something is the 
matter with it. 

As individuals we are prone to err 
in the same direction. Either as 
clock-makers or as monks we bind 
ourselves to our little tread-mill, 
and we get nowhere. Only by giv- 
ing our souls a chance can we find 
the richer life. Without a Vision we 
only half live. 

Now a Vision does not necessarily 
mean a wholly altruistic ideal. You 
and I have our own lives to live, 
though we realize the importance 
of living for others as well. Nor 
are we bound to live for posterity 
alone. We must take our own lives, 
as they are, and give them some 
guiding Vision to make them worth 
while to ourselves, and through 
30 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

ourselves, to others. We must 
make ourselves bigger, for little 
men can do little good. 
To take examples that loom large 
enough to be seen of men, we have 
all known presidents of the United 
States who have had no Vision. 
They may have been honest and 
patient and wise. They may have 
discharged the duties of the day ably 
and conscientiously. But when 
they passed from office they left 
small impress. The other sort is 
too easily recognized to need nam- 
ing — men who have seen the Vision 
of a young country growing 
from helpless infancy to lusty 
strength, or a sundered country 
knit together by unbreakable ties, 
or a too complacent country awak- 
ened to insidious dangers with- 
in it and the dire needs of 
posterity. It is easy to pick out 
31 



THE RICHER LIFE 

the men of Vision from those of 
no Vision. 

Now there is a wide difference be- 
tween Dreams and a Vision, though 
they are related. Both are depend- 
ent upon that attribute of the hu- 
man mind which we know by the 
name of imagination. Imagination 
is a gift without price. The beasts 
of the field have no imagination; 
the Man with the Hoe has little; 
the great men of all ages, from 
Abraham dow T n, have been men 
of vigorous imagination. Imagina- 
tion has been a mighty force in the 
development of the human race. 
Jerusalem and Rome were imag- 
ined before they were built. 
Without imagination there can be 
no upward striving. 
In some people imagination takes 
the form of Dreams, and Dreams are 
but the fluttering of the imagina- 
32 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

lion. A Dream makes no far and 
lofty flight. It vanishes before it 
is captured. It is the aimless wan- 
dering of the spirit. Some poetry 
has been built on Dreams, but little 
else. 

Now a Vision — a creative Vision — 
is a pictured goal. There is purpose 
and vigour in it. It is productive 
of results. And the loftier the Vi- 
sion, the higher the attainment. 
Some of us have to fight against this 
wasting of the imaginative force in 
fruitless dreaming. Dreaming is 
natural in childhood, while the will 
is yet in a plastic state. Dreaming 
of the past is an old man's pleasure. 
But for the young and virile, there 
should be a Vision and not Dreams. 
And if we find we have formed the 
dreaming habit, we have simply 
got to learn to harness our Dreams 
and make a Vision of them. For 
33 



THE RICHER LIFE 

a Vision is necessary to the highest 
achievement. 

But the stronger contrast appears 
between the man of Vision and the 
man of no Vision. It is my con- 
tention that a man of no Vision is 
of little more use in the world than 
a horse, or at best, a good dog; and 
I believe that if we discover our 
lack of a Vision in time, we can 
create, or formulate, or cultivate 
one. And this we must do if we 
want the richer life. 
Now we must bring this thought 
home, if it is to amount to anything. 
I can but suggest the thought; you 
must carry it through and apply 
it to your own needs and circum- 
stances. I believe that each of us 
can broaden and elevate and enrich 
his individual life by strengthening 
whatever Vision he may have, and 
living with it. It may be only a little 
34 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

Vision, but it will be a beginning. 
"Eat, drink, and be merry" is the 
slogan of the man of no Vision; so 
is "Work, for the night cometh," 
unless we have a clearly defined 
idea of what we are working for. 
Thoughtlessness and labour bondage 
are both doors that close out the 
Vision. 

If you are a poet or a preacher, a 
duke or a doctor, or just a plain, 
everyday family man or housewife, 
you have opportunity enough to 
glorify the day's work by adding 
unto it a Vision. Then you will 
try to do good instead of merely 
maintaining a pastorate; you will 
deliver a message to the world in- 
stead of merely acquiring poetic 
laurels; you will save lives instead 
of merely building up a practice; 
you will make a home happier in- 
stead of merely paying off a mort- 

35 



THE RICHER LIFE 

gage. This is what I mean by work- 
ing with and living by a Vision. 
Thus only may you grow and enrich 
your life and that of many about 
you. "Where there is no Vision, the 
people perish." 

When the Vision faded, Rome and 
Jerusalem passed away. 
I shall never forget a picture once 
drawn for a class of students by a 
keen-minded professor of biology. 
He was trying to explain certain 
processes of evolution to a group of 
sophomores whose thoughts were 
mostly out on the ball field. He 
showed how one creature, back in 
the early ages, was- thrown up on 
land and was forced either to grow 
legs or perish. And when the legs 
weren't sufficient for all of his de- 
scendants, some of them grew claws 
and teeth as well. Another crea- 
ture developed the ability to fly 
36 



THE VISION OF ANTON 

from pursuit, and another preferred 
quiet, stalking habits and a venom- 
ous fang. So, different types were 
developed, as different needs arose, 
until one creature was at last forced 
to stand upright and gain greater 
brain activity and skill with the 
hands in order to exist amid stronger 
and swifter adversaries. 
But away back near the beginning 
there was a creature that soon 
found a safe and easy haven. He 
grew a hard shell that was proof 
against all his enemies; he increased 
the functions of mouth and stomach 
to absorb food from the water 
about him; he had no need to run 
from pursuers, nor to go forth in 
search of food; he toiled not, neither 
did he fight. He has lived thus for 
countless ages, in the soft, luxurious 
mud, safe, well nourished, contented. 
He long ago reached a state of per- 
37 



THE RICHER LIFE 

feet economic balance. What could 
be more desirable? Have we not 
many of us longed for a state like 
this? 

"But," cried the professor, leaning 
far over his desk, and shaking a long, 
warning finger at us, "who wants to 
be an oyster?" 

And the oyster, I think you will 
agree, is primarily a creature with- 
out a Vision. 



38 




OcHermii 5 ^eKnidK^a72c/^eJesier 

A STUDY IN VALUES 




NCE upon a time there was 
I a nobleman who had three sons, 
and when he felt the burden of 
years resting heavy upon him, 
he called them to him and said : 
"My sons, the time has come 
when you must go forth to seek 
your fortunes in the world, for 
I must soon leave it. I have 
but a small estate to divide 
among three, but there is enough 
so that each of you may start 
out with a coat on his back 
3d 



THE RICHER LIFE 

and silver in his purse. Each of 
you may choose his own course, 
but it will remain for you to 
prove yourselves worthy of the 
honourable name that is handed 
down to you. I have endeavoured 
to teach you wisdom, virtue, and 
prudence, but it will remain for you 
to decide how you will follow my 
teachings. For a young man's life 
is in his own keeping after he 
comes of age, and the privilege 
and the responsibility of choos- 
ing a career rest with him. Take 
time to think it over, my sons, 
and then come to me for my 
blessing." 

Now the eldest son was a man of 
keen intellect and great virtue. He 
saw all about him men striving and 
dying for wealth and fame. He had 
read much of what the ancient sages 
had taught of the vanity of the world. 
40 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

So at length he went to his father 
and said: 

" Father, I have chosen my course. 
I have determined to become a 
scholar. I like not the world and 
its vanities; I like not the senseless 
struggling of men for power; I will 
withdraw from it and devote mv 
life to the culture of my mind, but 
I will not be selfish; when I have 
looked long into the hidden things 
of life I will become wise, and then 
I will give to the world of my wisdom 
as did the philosophers of old. I 
will be a good man as well as a 
wise one. I will live frugally and 
think loftily. By dwelling in the 
realm of the ideal I will make my- 
self a great teacher for mankind." 
The father nodded. "Thou art a 
good son," quoth he. "May what 
thou seekest come to pass. My 
blessing go with thee." 

41 



THE RICHER LIFE 

So the eldest son took his share of 
the silver and his books, and de- 
parted. 

The second son was a man of vigour 
and ambition. He looked about 
him and saw that some men were 
great and some small, some rich 
and some poor, some surrounded 
with comfort and some with misery, 
some powerful and some puny, some 
masters and some servants. Why 
should a man choose poverty, ob- 
scurity, and servitude, if wealth 
and fame and power were to be 
won? So he went to his father and 
said : 

"Father, I have chosen my course. 
I have decided to be a soldier. 
I have a strong arm and I fear noth- 
ing. I will fight my way to fame 
and power. The king shall hear 
of me, and I shall be raised up so 
that thou shalt be proud of thy son. 
42 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

And when I am a master of men 
I will not be cruel, but all men 
shall look up to me, and I shall be 
honoured in the land." 
The father nodded. "Thou art a 
brave son," quoth he. "May what 
thou seekest come to pass. My 
blessing go with thee." 
So the second son took his share of 
the silver and bought a coat of 
mail, a lance, a sword, a plumed 
helmet, and a coal-black charger, 
and set off for the wars. 
But the youngest son was a gentle 
youth who loved life as he found 
it. He hated not the world, nor 
did he long for power. He would 
rather laugh than sigh, rather sing 
than fight. For all that, he was 
no weakling, and he desired earnestly 
that his life might be worth the living. 
For many days he pondered, and then 
he went to his father and said: 
43 



THE RICHER LIFE 

"Father, I cannot choose my course. 
I am neither a scholar nor a fighter 
like my brothers. I wish to lead 
a worthy life and make the world 
a little better, but I know not how 
to begin. The king has sent for 
me to be his jester, because he has 
heard that I have a ready wit, but 
a jester is not a man of honour 
among his brethren. He makes no 
stir in the world. What shall I 
do?" 

Now the youngest son had his 
mother's eyes, and his father loved 
him best of the three. The father 
gazed at him fondly for a long time, 
and then said: 

"My son, much reading of books 
may not make a wise man, and 
much spilling of blood may not 
make him great. Whatsoever a 
man's heart biddeth, so is he, 
whether he wear corselet, gown, or 
44 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

motley. Life is a various com 
pound, and the wise man con- 
sidereth not one ingredient alone. 
It matters not what garb or what 
trade a man chooseth, so that he 
choose also righteousness, honesty, 
kindness, open-heartedness, sim- 
plicity, tolerance, a clean mind, a 
sweet spirit, a lofty vision, and good 
will toward men. Go to the king 
and be his jester; it cannot hurt 
thee while thy soul is in thine own 
keeping. For it is the life of the 
soul, not the deeds of the mind or 
of the arm, that counts. My bless- 
ing go with thee." 
So the third son set forth, very 
humbly, for the palace of the king; 
and his father watching him depart 
rejoiced, for humility is the begin- 
ning of greatness. 

When twenty years had passed, and 

the old nobleman slept with his 

45 



THE RICHER LIFE 

fathers, a traveller from a distant 
land passed by a hermit's cave 
in the mountains. He saw the 
scholar within poring over his books, 
and being a student of men the 
traveller made inquiry as to what 
manner of man the hermit was. 
He found that the hermit had gained 
renown throughout the land as a 
man of learning, but that no one 
loved him. Much brooding had 
made him morose. Much solitude 
had given him but little understand- 
ing of his fellow-men, and they 
could not understand him. When 
he tried to teach the people philos- 
ophy, he failed. "He is a dreamer," 
they said. 

"A wasted life/' quoth the traveller, 
and passed on. 

One day he came to a town where 
there was a sound of tramping horses 
and presently, with much pomp, a 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

troop of men-at-arms rode by, and 
all the people stood and gaped after 
them. At their head rode a knight 
of forbidding visage, on a coal- 
black charger. 

'Who is that?" inquired the travel- 
ler. They told him that the knight 
was a mighty soldier, who had come 
back from the wars with much 
wealth and great renown. But the 
people did not love him, and when 
he gave alms he bestowed also fear. 
Much fighting had hardened his 
heart. He had climbed to power 
on the necks of friend and foe. 
His career had left him no time for 
the finer things of life. 
"A fool for all his greatness/' quoth 
the traveller, and passed on. 
At length he came to the city where 
the king's palace was. And as he 
paused before the inn, a jester passed 
in his silly cap and bells. With the 
47 



THE RICHER LIFE 

jester were children, begging for a 
story, and he rebuked them not. 
An old woman stepped out quickly 
from a doorway and kissed the 
jester's hand before he could protest. 
And as he passed, the people smiled, 
and there was love and not mockery 
in the smile. 

"Who is that fellow?" asked the 
traveller. 

"That," replied the innkeeper, "is 
the court fool." 

"But do the people love a fool?" 
inquired the traveller. 
"Yea, verily," quoth the publican, 
and told the traveller many a tale 
of the king's jester, before the 
tavern door. 

It appeared that the jester, when 
he was not busy making laughter 
for the king and his court, had taken 
to wandering about the town and 
making laughter for the people. 
48 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

Now laughter is not a thing to be 
disregarded, and the people came 
to look for the jester with joy. And 
soon they learned that beneath his 
wit lay a fund of homely wisdom, 
and that beneath his motley beat 
a Christian heart. And they began 
to come to him with their troubles, 
and he tried to show them how 
they could make their lives better 
worth while by living at peace with 
their neighbours and looking out 
for those things that feed the spirit. 
They began to look for him as they 
looked for sunshine after a shower, 
and he failed them not. And be- 
cause he was only a jester, and 
not a great man, he and the people 
understood each other, and the town 
was better because he lived in it. 
"I am from the East," quoth the 
traveller, "and my ways are not 
your ways. I know not what a 
49 



THE RICHER LIFE 

jester's work may be, but I know 
that I have seen a good man and a 
wise one. I have travelled far and 
seen many men of power and learn- 
ing, wealth and fame, and many 
men who profess much piety; but 
men of great soul are few. This 
man has turned his life to account, 
for the things of the spirit are better 
than the things of the body or of 
the mind." 

And the innkeeper, though he com- 
prehended not the full purport of 
the wise man's words, nodded, smil- 
ing, for he, too, loved the king's 
jester. 

Youth is play time, and frivolity 
is condoned in the young; but I 
believe that the average young man 
— the every-day American — has 
more serious thoughts inside his 
head than he is given credit for, 
50 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

or than he himself would really 
acknowledge. When we are twenty- 
one we stand at the threshold of 
life, about to put away childish 
things and to become as men. We 
don't say much about it, but the 
thought disturbs us not a little. 
What of the future? What of our 
lives? 

The majority of young Americans, 
as soon as they begin to take thought 
of the future, desire success above 
all else. But just how to obtain 
success, and just what success is, 
puzzles them. Experience has not 
taught them; they must set sail 
on faith. Then come the hard 
knocks, the disillusionings; dreams 
pale before the pitiless light of 
day. The struggle between idealism 
and materialism begins — a struggle 
bitter and to the death, which no 
poet has celebrated. No patron 
51 



THE RICHER LIFE 

gods hover over the battlefield; 
no blare of trumpet or beat of drum 
stirs the weary heart to deeds of 
martial valour. No one cheers; no 
one knows. But because the fight 
is universal and vital, and because 
all the future depends upon the 
outcome, I venture to invade the 
realm of the commonplace and talk 
of these things. 

When I was twenty-one I left the 
shelter of college halls, equipped, 
more or less adequately, with hope, 
ambition, and ideals. With me were 
the band of my fellows, and we 
went our several ways to seek our 
fortunes. Well, it has been a blind 
sort of a seeking for most of us, and 
I have sometimes felt that, for all 
our youthful self-confidence and 
wilfulness, the way might have been 
made a little plainer. 
The teachers of our youth are all 
52 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

too often men of the study and 
the cloister, and it is hardly to be 
expected that non-combatants can 
successfully teach the art of war. 
I do not know the remedy for this, 
but I feel that it is a defect in our 
educational system. Ideals they 
taught us — ideals of honour, of 
altruism, of service, of scholarly 
and intellectual attainment. For 
this we thank them. They told 
us that these things were the de- 
siderata of life, and that it was our 
duty and privilege to be better than 
our fellow-men, and by our example 
to lead them on to better things. 
A delightful feeling of self-com- 
placency this gave us, to be sure, 
but it was short-lived. When we 
left the protection of Alma Mater, 
and got into the thick of the struggle 
for existence, then did the dis- 
concerting truth burst upon us that 
53 



THE RICHER LIFE 

somehow our lofty ideals did not 
square with the facts of life as we 
found them. We discovered that, 
with all our degrees and our self- 
sufficiency, we were but privates 
in the army. Over us were captains 
of tens and captains of hundreds, and 
somewhere away above them w^ere 
the great generals. We seemed a 
bit handicapped in our mission of 
purifying society. 

When some of the conceit had been 
knocked out of us, we began to ask 
ourselves if we had not made some 
mistake in judgment and motive. 
Perhaps we were on the wrong road, 
after all. Success seemed to lie up 
another street. The crowd seemed 
to be going another way — on 
up the hill of material prosperity. 
If we changed our course a bit, we 
might reach a height where noble 
deeds would be possible; there was 
54 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

nothing noble in life in the valley. 
And so some of us turned and went 
with the crowd, and have become 
knights of greater or less renown, 
not without damage to our im- 
mortal souls. And some of us have 
set our faces against the stream, 
and sought some quiet backwater, 
there to remain, hermit-like, em- 
bittered against this wrong-headed 
old world. And some, I hope, have 
chosen a golden mean, striving, 
without loss of ideals, to take life 
as we find it and make the best of 
it. 

And this making the best of it is 
the right course, I believe, and one 
not altogether plain to the average 
youth. For youth sees black and 
white, and travels blindly until the 
harmonizing effects of the neutral 
grays are discovered. If only the 
truth might be found earlier! 
55 



THE RICHER LIFE 

I have spoken of college men, be- 
cause with them the change comes 
abruptly, and the situation is acute. 
But all young men and women 
must face these questions sooner 
or later, in one form or another; 
and, in fact, we are all young until 
we are dead. As we grow older it 
is harder to turn off a long-travelled 
road, but it is not impossible. 
There are things in life that are 
worth while and things that are 
not worth while. I construct this 
platitude for the sake of an axio- 
matic starting point. If we are at 
all thoughtful, we desire to attain 
to those things that are worth while 
and to disregard those things that 
are not worth while. We are not 
of those foolish ones who spend 
their labour for that which satisfieth 
not. But it is not always so easy 
to determine what things are worth 
56 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

while in life and what are not. 
Especially is the answ r er obscure 
to the young man of small ex- 
perience. It might not be such a 
bad idea if every final examination 
paper for the Bachelor of Arts 
degree were to bear the question, 
"What is worth while in life?" It 
seems to me I recollect puzzling 
over questions less important than 
that. Let us consider what the 
correct answer would be. 
I don't know w r hether it is de- 
plorable or not, but it is true that 
academic idealism and the actuali- 
ties of life do not jibe. In its un- 
diluted form this idealism is essen- 
tially fallacious. The Brahmin may 
attain Heaven through contempla- 
tion, but not the twentieth -century 
American. Pure idealism fails be- 
cause it is theoretical. It belongs 
to the millennium, not to the present. 
57 



THE RICHER LIFE 

It takes into account a single force; 
it does not allow for the variations 
of the needle. But there is a vast 
difference between ideals and 
idealism, just as there is between 
sentiment and sentimentality. It 
is in the confusion of these that the 
error lies. No sane man will de- 
plore ideals. They are worth while. 
Materialism, on the other hand, 
is equally fallacious, and for similar 
reasons. It takes no account of 
the human soul, and that tells the 
whole story. And that we have 
souls is proved by the very fact 
that these problems perplex us. 
If we were soulless, we should all 
be out-and-out materialists or utter 
fools. 

Coleridge says in his "Table Talk": 
"Either we have an immortal soul, 
or we have not. If we have not, we 
are beasts; the first and wisest of 
58 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

beasts, it may be, but still true 
beasts. We shall only differ in 
degree, and not in kind; just as 
the elephant differs from the slug. 
But by the concession of all the 
materialists of all the schools, or 
almost all, we are not of the same 
kind as beasts — and this, also, 
we say from our own consciousness. 
Therefore, methinks, it must be the 
possession of a soul within us that 
makes the difference." 
Now, then, we arrive at the funda- 
mental question: How can we 
nurture our souls, in spite of the 
materialism about us, without swing- 
ing over to ineffectual idealism? 
How may the practical ambition 
and the loftier vision be made to 
work in double harness? How can 
we find the golden mean — the har- 
monizing grays in the picture? 
Those are questions we must answer 
59 



THE RICHER LIFE 

for ourselves, according to our in- 
dividual needs and circumstances; 
but if we have surely formulated 
the problem in its personal appli- 
cation, we shall have taken a long 
step toward the goal. The jester 
in the parable worked it out in his 
way; you and I must work it out 
in ours. And it will help us if we 
study the lives of those men about 
us who seem truly admirable, for 
the world is not all bad, and there 
are tens of thousands who have not 
bowed the knee to Baal. 
For the young man who is choosing 
a career, the first question is, What 
is success? There is time enough 
ahead; let him sit down and con- 
sider it. Who is a successful man? 
Is it Ryan or Rockefeller, with all 
their wealth? Is it Parson Prayer- 
ful, that pious man, whose wife 
is ashamed of her last year's bonnet? 
60 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

All the wise men of all the ages have 
pointed out the folly of riches. I 
can add nothing to their scorn. 
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures 
on earth" is a maxim for all time 
ancj all countries. And yet money 
is a good servant, though a hard 
master. Money stands for much 
that makes life happier. Parson 
Prayerful' s family would be better 
off if he could provide a little more of 
it. It is the glorification of money, 
and the display of wealth, and the 
blighting power of the quest that 
starve and warp the soul. 
And the verv use of monev seems 
to have a contaminating influence 
sometimes. A Hughes will give up 
an opportunity to make money for 
a seat on the Supreme Bench, and 
we say it is admirable; an Addicks 
wil f i pay out money for a seat in 
the Senate, and we say it is des- 
61 



THE RICHER LIFE 

picable. It is a complex question, 
and the wise man will avoid its 
complexities in his own life. 
Money is not to be scorned when it 
is a good servant. Fame is not to 
be scorned when it is honestly won. 
Position is not to be scorned when 
it is an honourable one. The hermit 
is a fool for all his learning. It is 
the slavery to these things that 
crushes the soul. 

These are not profound conclusions, 
but rather suggestive hints to set 
the young man thinking. For my 
object is to give some young man 
God-speed on the right road. The 
vast importance of formulating the 
purpose, defining the ideals, and 
clarifying the vision in youth, can- 
not be overestimated. Nine tenths 
of life's actions, say psychologists, 
depend upon habit. The impor- 
tance of forming the right habits 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

of thought is self-evident. A false 
step at the beginning of a career 
means much labour or disaster 
later. That youth is wise who early 
recognizes the importance of his 
own soul, and who makes an in- 
vestment in the true and the lofty, 
as he would start a bank account. 
I beg your pardon, my young friend. 
You do not like preaching; neither 
do I. But it's a serious sort of 
business — this making the best of 
it — even for a jester, and it pays 
to look life in the face now and then, 
and get acquainted with it. And 
if Ave do not cramp our souls with 
sordid aims, and if we do not shut 
out the world from our souls because 
we disapprove of it, we can find 
much that is good in life — good 
people, good books, and beauty 
everywhere. We mustn't neglect 
our souls, that's all. And don't 
63 



THE RICHER LIFE 

be discouraged if the world seems 
obstinate and does not respond to 
your efforts to reform it. Try 
helping some one person toward the 
richer life; it's easier and more satis- 
factory. And remember that neither 
materialism, nor idealism, nor wealth 
can make your life richer, nor that 
other person's, but only the culti- 
vation of the things of the spirit. 
I knew a man once who was, as I 
look back upon his life, a success. 
He was a newspaper editor in a 
New England city, and his salary 
needed much nursing to provide 
for the needs of his family. His 
life was not an easy one, and there 
were heart-wearying things in it; 
but he was known as a man of 
laughter and sunshine. He was, 
too, a man of intellect and wisdom, 
and in his youth he had dreams of 
literary achievement, I believe. 
64 



HERMIT, KNIGHT AND JESTER 

Circumstances deprived him of the 
realization of those dreams, and he 
never won what he deserved. And 
yet, I say, his life was not in vain, 
for through it all his soul grew large 
and kind. He loved beauty, and 
the roses in his yard bloomed for 
him as though they felt the virtue 
of his touch. His heart was a 
fountain of perpetual youth, and 
he helped people to laugh and to 
sing. He did good deeds, and stood 
for truth and right in his community. 
He drew to him the love of men and 
the gratitude of women, and when 
he died there was mourning in other 
homes than his own. 
I think I would prefer a little more 
of the ease of life than he had. It 
is less difficult for the soul to grow 
in the broad sunshine. And yet I 
think I would like to be something 
like him, if I could. 
65 




'SAeKmcS Ax/ho wished iobe Good. 




NCE upon a time there lived a 
king who desired to be good. His 
father had been so wicked that 
his people hated him, and when 
the old king died and the young 
king ascended the throne, the 
kingdom was in a sorry state 
and almost on the point of re- 
bellion. Now the old king's sins 
were too numerous to catalogue. 
His infidelity broke the queen's 
heart, and in a drunken rage he 
66 



THE GOOD KING 

slew his only brother. In discovering 
novel forms of wickedness he showed 
an ingenuity worthy of a better 
cause. 

Being a very bad old king, he paid 
little attention to the upbringing 
of his son, who consequently grew 
up entirely under his mother's 
influence. The queen was not a 
prodigiously wise woman, but ex- 
perience had taught her the baneful 
effects of wickedness, and her teach- 
ings consisted largely in telling 
the young prince what not to do. 
She made him see to what condition 
the kingdom had come because of 
his father's wickedness. She showed 
him the ugliness of sin. She made 
him desire to shun it; she made 
him want to be good, but she taught 
him only how not to be bad. 
So when the old king died and the 
young king reigned in his stead, 
67 



THE RICHER LIFE 

he let it be known that he wished 
to be a good king. The people were 
very glad, for they were weary of 
royal vice, and they acclaimed the 
new king joyfully. "Now,'' said 
they, "we shall be a happy people 
again.' 5 

The king married a princess from 
a neighbouring realm, and when 
the people saw that he bade fair 
to be an exemplary husband, they 
rejoiced. He banished all the de- 
signing women and reckless royster- 
ers from his court; and established 
good men and ladies in their places. 
He caused extortion to cease and 
made peace with his neighbours. 
Then he seated himself quietly on 
his throne and devoted himself to 
the task of being a just and honour- 
able monarch. 

Years went by, and the king did 

no evil. He devoted himself ex- 

68 



THE GOOD KING 

clusively to the avoidance of sin. 
But somehow he warmed not the 
people's hearts. There had been 
some who loved the old king in 
spite of his wickedness, for he could 
be a jolly good fellow when he 
would; but few there were who really 
loved his son. Both court and king- 
dom sank into a sort of righteous 
lethargy. 

By and by a famine came. The 
rains fell not, and blight ruined the 
corn. The crops failed, and there 
was much misery when winter came. 
The king ordered certain sanitary 
measures to be taken, and saw to 
it that the police redoubled their 
vigilance to prevent thieving and 
any other crime which the hard 
times might encourage. 
But murmur ings and grumblings 
arose among the people, and when 
they reached the ears of the king 



THE RICHER LIFE 

in his comfortable palace he was 
surprised and grieved. 
"The people must be patient," said 
he. "They should remember how 
much worse was their plight under 
a wicked king." 

But the murmurings grew louder, 
until one day a delegation of citizens 
came to the gates of the royal castle 
and demanded that something be 
done for their relief. 
The king was alarmed and hastily 
summoned his council, but they 
gave him no consolation. 
" Hunger and suffering have wrought 
the people to a frenzy," they said. 
"Nothing can be done till another 
harvest." 

At his wits' end, the king at last 
sent for Fra Dominique, an old 
hermit who was reputed to be very 
wise. 

"What shall I do?" cried the king 
70 



THE GOOD KING 

in despair. 'The people are turn- 
ing against me — me, who have 
always been called Rudolph the 
Good/ 5 

"What hast thou done?" asked Fra 
Dominique. 

"Done?" cried the king, mistaking 
his meaning; "I have done nothing. 
I have never ground down the 
people as my father did, but now 
they turn against me." 
"But what hast thou done to make 
them love thee?" asked the sage. 
" Hast gone among them, taking 
bread to the hungry and comfort to 
the sick? Hast ever spoken a kind 
word to old men or young mothers? " 
"Ah," broke in King Rudolph, with 
a smile, "thou dost not understand. 
Those are not kingly tasks. Thou 
hast lived so long in thy mountain 
hut that thou hast forgotten how 
the affairs of men are conducted. 
71 



THE RICHER LIFE 

It is for the king to rule, not to act 
as almoner or physician/' 
"Nay," replied Fra Dominique; 
"then I cannot help thee," and, 
shaking his hoary old head, he 
hobbled out of the audience room, 
while the courtiers tittered behind 
their hands. 

The discontent grew apace as winter 
advanced and suffering increased. 
The royal palace was practically 
in a state of siege, and the king 
slept in a coat of mail for fear of 
his own people. 

But the young queen, who had been 
born in a happier kingdom, heard 
the words of the old hermit and 
pondered them in her heart. And 
after the sun had set she slipped out 
to the cottage of Simon the gardener, 
whose wife lay sick of the fever. 
There she learned much that gave 
her food for thought, and on the 
72 



THE GOOD KING 

following day she took bread and 
wine and went forth into the town, 
trembling and afraid, but steadfast 
in her purpose. She called at the old 
cobbler's shop and left food for his 
starving little ones, for there were no 
shoes to be made in those lean days. 
She visited the crusty old miller and 
gave him gold for flour which she 
left at the homes of the needy. 
The next day she went forth again, 
and the next, and the next. 
The people at first received her 
coldly and with suspicion, but soon 
they began to doff their caps and 
curtsy when she approached, and 
finally to follow her in the streets 
to kiss the hem of her robe. Her 
heart went out to the stricken and 
forlorn, and they blessed her and 
called her Madeline the Kind. 
The queen saw that she was doing 
but little to alleviate the sufferings 
73 



THE RICHER LIFE 

of the people, so at last she sent 
her jewels by a trusty courier to 
her father, and in the early spring 
great wains came over the moun- 
tains laden with grain, and flocks 
of sheep were driven into the valley 
to provide food and raiment for the 
stricken people. 

Then came the work of sowing and 
cultivating, and with the prospect 
of good crops the people ceased 
their murmurings, and the king 
rested in peace. He rode forth 
again on his big roan mare, and the 
people saluted him as of yore. 
" There rides Rudolph the Good," 
said some. 

"Yes/ 5 said others, "but wait, and 
thou mayst have a glimpse of his 
queen, Madeline the Kind." 
At the head of his glittering caval- 
cade King Rudolph passed on be- 
yond the town and out among the 
74 



THE GOOD KING 

greening fields, and his heart swelled 
with pride. 

"Ah!' 5 he cried, "see what it is to 
be a good king!" 

Then he bethought himself of old 
Fra Dominique, and, being in the 
mood, he urged his good mare up 
the winding path to the hermit's 
hut. There he found the old sage 
poring over an ancient manuscript. 
"Good morrow, Fra Dominique/' 
he cried, leaping from his horse. 
"And how is the gay world using 
thee?" 

"Better than I deserve," replied 
the hermit. 

'Why say est thou so?" asked the 
king. "Thou art a good man." 
"A man may be as good as a saint," 
quoth the hermit, "but he is an old 
man who has lived long enough to 
do all the good that the world 
deserves of him." 
75 



THE RICHER LIFE 

"Thou speakest in riddles/' laughed 
the king. "See yonder fields with 
their growing corn, and the men 
singing at their work? They are 
happy because they have a good 
king, Fra Dominique." 
"Nay/ 5 answered the hermit, "it 
is because they have a good queen. 
Listen, and I will give thee the truth 
of it. There is but one amulet that 
will ward off woe — one talisman 
that brings sleep to the pillow of 
king or peasant. It is the talisman 
Goodness. On one side of it is 
written the word 'morality/ and 
on the other, 'kindness/ It is 
incomplete and useless without both. 
To do no evil is not all of goodness. 
My stool does no evil. To be kind 
is not enough. My dog is kind to 
me, but he worries Goodwife Gret- 
chen's cat. Wear this talisman and 
thou wilt be indeed a good king/' 
76 



THE GOOD KING 

But Rudolph was already weary 
of good counsel, and leaping on 
his mare he dashed down the hill 
with his merry cavaliers, while Fra 
Dominique bethought him of a 
certain very rich young man who 
had kept the law from his youth 
up, but when the Master bade him 
sell all he had and distribute unto 
the poor he was very sorrowful, 
for he was very rich. 

According to the comic papers, 
at least, the New Year is the time 
for the making of good resolutions. 
Why do we do it? What is the 
object of this annual turning over 
of the new leaf? What is that 
impulse in men and women that 
makes them feel that they have not 
been good enough? 
This being good is an odd thing, 
when you come to think of it. And 
77 



THE RICHER LIFE 

the oddest thing about it is that we 
don't think about it — at least not 
to reason it out at all. We take 
it for granted that being good is 
at once a desirable and a difficult 
thing, and its difficulty is the chief 
thing that bothers us. 
When we resolve to take more exer- 
cise, we do it with a distinct purpose; 
our livers are torpid or our belts too 
tight. When we resolve to read 
more literature and less newspaper, 
we do it because some one has made 
us feel ashamed of our ignorance. 
We say, "I will eat less," or, "I 
will save money," but we do not 
often say, "I will be a good person," 
any more than we say, "I will wear 
shoes," or, "Heaven helping me, 
I will breathe." We may not be 
good as easily as we breathe, but 
we do not question its desirability. 
The fact remains that plenty of 
78 



THE GOOD KING 

people are not good, and may even 
possess a subconscious doubt as to 
the sense of it. Still, it is usually 
rather a matter of temperament; 
it comes more natural to some than 
to others. 

But it isn't easy for any one to be 
good, and since it is so very hard for 
some, it is worth while raising the 
question as to the value of goodness. 
If it isn't really worth while, why 
bother with New Year resolutions 
and all that sort of thing? Why not 
be wicked and have a good time? 
Old saws are mostly wrong, and we 
know it. "Be good and you'll be 
happy" convinces no one. The 
Psalmist's observation that "The 
wicked flourish as a green bay tree" 
was based upon a long and doubt- 
less discouraging experience. The 
attitude of the naturally virtuous, 
that it is right to be good, simply 
79 



THE RICHER LIFE 

begs the question. And so certain 
ultra-radicals arise and say it is 
right to be bad, and we are hard 
put to it for an answer. They 
shock us, Elbert Hubbard-wise, 
with brilliant and subversive epi- 
grams, and we are not prepared 
with an adequate rejoinder. 
Leaving piety aside — for that, it 
seems to me, is a manifestation of 
an entirely different impulse — - let 
us consider of what goodness actual- 
ly consists. I suppose we would 
all work it out in different ways, 
but to me it seems possible to divide 
goodness into two main elements: 
morality, which is negative and 
passive, and kindness, which is posi- 
tive and active. 

Morality is comprehended in the 
observation of the "Thou shalt not" 
portion of the Decalogue. I need 
not enumerate the Commandments. 
80 



THE GOOD KING 

The moral man is the one who 
not only commits none of these sins, 
but avoids actions which border 
on them. Thus, the strictly moral 
man does not misrepresent, cheat, 
bribe, flirt with his neighbour's 
wife, or get drunk. 
Good people have made a religion 
of morality, when what it needs is 
a reasonable philosophy. Morality 
has actually a secure, logical basis, 
only we have lost sight of that 
and have taken as an axiom what 
is actually a q. e. d. If we were 
only familiar with the steps of the 
demonstration we would be armed 
against scoffers and against doubts. 
I actually heard a man, accused of 
an immoral action, ask, "Why not? 55 
and no satisfactory answer was forth- 
coming. To have said, "Because 
it is wrong" would have been merely 
absurd. 

81 



THE RICHER LIFE 

Nietzsche says, "Morality is the 
herd instinct in the individual." 
He needn't have been so scornful 
about it, for his definition expresses 
a perfectly valid reason why. When 
analyzed, it means that we inherit 
from the experience of countless 
generations of human beings the con- 
sciousness that the only way to live 
comfortably together is morally. 
Among these far-off ancestors were 
those who robbed, murdered, and 
took other liberties with one another, 
and that manner of living proved 
disastrous. It has therefore, be- 
come a part of our human instinct 
to regard immoral living as upset- 
ting and entangling, and when this 
ancient truth is applied to the in- 
dividual it works out just as com- 
pletely as with the race. 
We are trying for a little broadening 
of the mental horizon — you and I 
82 



THE GOOD KING 

— for a little soul expansion and 
spiritual growth. We are after the 
richer life, and wickedness is bound 
to retard us in our quest. Wicked- 
ness complicates life. The simple, 
straightforward way of living is 
what gives our souls a chance to 
grow and so to become of some value 
to us. Uprightness, morality, truth, 
and decency give a clear, clean 
foundation for the richer life, while 
vice is a smothering force. 
So, for that matter, is puritanism. 
Puritanism has done a great deal 
to strengthen our love of virtue, 
but it is an unreasoning, dogmatic 
thing — a blind leader of the blind. 
It builds a pontoon bridge across 
the morass; it does not touch 
bottom. 

Moreover, puritanism is most annoy- 
ing to certain minds and stirs up a 
harmful antagonism to the good 



THE RICHER LIFE 

that is in it. We must see clearly 
if we are to advance. 
Truth, be it said in passing, is much 
misunderstood. There are those 
radicals who make a fetish of truth 
without understanding it. Because 
truth is naked, they seem to con- 
sider all nakedness truth. I have 
little patience with them. 
Finally, there is the semi-moral 
man who believes that honesty is 
the best policy. It is; only the man 
who is honest for policy's sake misses 
the point. He is thinking of the 
opinion of his neighbours, and not 
of his own soul. One can get away 
from one's neighbours, glory be, 
but one must live a lifetime with 
qne's own soul. 

Morality, therefore, is the avoidance 
of the entanglements of vice, and 
I contend that it is essential to the 
richer life, even for men of genius, 
84 



THE GOOD KING 

who, by the way, are often conspicu- 
ously immoral and conspicuously 
unhappy. They live on jagged 
mountain peaks; the average man 
is better off on a plateau. 
Morality is essential, but I contend 
that it is merely negative and pas- 
sive. It clears the way and makes 
soul-growth possible, but it does 
not make the soul grow. Something 
active must be added. The cul- 
tivator must be used after the plow. 
Christian ethics teaches us that 
faith without works is void, and 
the good king was only half good, 
after all. 

If we are to bother at all with good 
resolutions this year, I would sug- 
gest taking a little thought on the 
subject of kindness. Kindness — 
or charity — is the active force of 
Christianity. Buddhist, Brahmin, 
Mohammedan, Confucian — all are 
85 



THE RICHER LIFE 

moral, but only the Master taught 
the great truth of kindness. Kind- 
ness added to morality completes 
goodness. Kindness makes the 
world a better place to live 
in. Kindness dries up tears, heals 
wounds, feeds the hungry, comforts 
the distressed. 

The followers of Nietzsche would 
have none of this. Their super- 
man should climb to lonely heights 
on the necks of his less fortunate 
fellows. I would not be that super- 
man for worlds. I believe that 
when he reaches that sublime height 
he will own a soul as shrivelled 
as a last year's pear, and will enjoy 
it about as much. Nietzsche missed 
the whole point of the Sermon on 
the Mount. Kindness is something 
he could not understand, and I 
pity him. 

It takes a man-sized mind to com- 
86 



THE GOOD KING 

prehend the full meaning of kind- 
ness. Only one great Teacher 
understood it perfectly. I can 
remember how utterly beyond my 
grasp it was when I was a child. 
If I could bring myself to live one 
day without committing some seri- 
ous childish sin I was puffed with 
pride. Kindness was, I felt, a virtue 
reserved for mothers and other 
untempted persons. And I can't 
say truthfully that I have fully 
outgrown that feeling. 
It is not easy to be kind. It is 
much more difficult than to be moral. 
It requires the strength of a grown 
man. It means more than mere 
forbearance and amiability. Gen- 
tleness is a mark of power, not of 
weakness. 

But oh, how kindness helps the soul 

to grow ! How it enriches life ! How 

it extends the personality to include 

87 



THE RICHER LIFE 

other people, and broadens the out- 
look of life! It gives us purpose, 
poise, direction. It gives ground- 
work and foundation to life. It 
provides something to live for when 
all else crashes in ruins about our 
ears. I fancy a really kind man 
would not think of suicide. And 
it furnishes one of the most 
interesting, alluring occupations 
imaginable. 

And the best of it is that any one 
can be kind. It requires no special 
talent, no unusual advantages of 
training.* It is harder for some men 
to be kind than to get rich, but 
kindness can be achieved by many, 
riches by few. 

Yes, I think it is worth trying — 
this being good. I don't know what 
or where Heaven is; I don't much 
believe in Hell. But I do know 
that I would hate to enter Eternity 
88 



THE GOOD KING 

— whatever Eternity may be — 
with the soul of a Machiavelli. 
Wherever our souls go, if they go 
anywhere when we die, they will 
be bare souls. They will be ex- 
posed to the full glare of the great 
white light that beats about the 
Throne, and there will be no cover- 
ing those souls with fine raiment 

— no excusing their condition with 
clever sophistries. We cannot look 
into the future, but it is in our 
power to prepare our souls for 
whatever may happen, and I should 
prefer to take my chances with a 
soul that had not been choked with 
wickedness or stunted for lack of 
exercise. And if nothing happens 
at all — if annihilation is the end 
of life — at least goodness will not 
have done us a bit of harm. 



89 





V?.'i*§S 






,|{\vvo^/ 


7$w^^ 


'«7,\V, 


'A'fCtt?; 


ftf^/rg 








$j$ 




'•^lw 


" 




'"'s. 




'• 


/ 




' 


> s *Jf I V 




» v ' 












"\ ! : 


r ^'^M^l 


& 


** 


v^**"!' 1 [ 






^ 



r^eOpenindo/^^eEyes o/" Jasper 



NCE upon a time there lived a 
family of very dull and respect- 
able people. Their lives were 
;so very commonplace that it 
must have been long ago. I 
don't believe anybody lives 
nowadays whose existence is so 
drab and uneventful. These 
people came into the world in a 
most ordinary and conventional 
manner. They were merely 
born. Then they grew up, and 
worked for a living. They were 
90 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

married, and had children, and by 
and by took sick and died. And 
that's all there was to it. So when 
little Jasper was born it was taken as 
a matter of course. He was fed and 
clothed according to custom, and he 
cried and slept after the manner of in- 
fants. But in the spring before Jasper 
was born a wee bit of a meadow lark 
had been hatched out of an egg in 
a beautiful aspen grove far away. 
The sunshine was pouring into the 
nest when he first opened his eyes, 
and, as he was constantly looking 
upward for worms that his parents 
brought, he early became acquainted 
with the green leaves and the blue 
sky. And as soon as ever he could 
he learned to sing. By and by the 
time came for him to leave the nest 
and he started out to see the world, 
singing, as he went, of the green 
leaves and the blue sky. 
91 



THE RICHER LIFE 

One day, in the warm summer 
weather, he alighted on the sill of an 
open window, and because of the 
joyousness in his heart he poured 
forth a glad and rippling song. 
The people inside the house were 
very busy at the time and did not 
hear the meadow lark, but the song 
fell full on the pink ears of a new- 
born babe in the room; it was the 
first sound in this wonderful world 
that little Jasper heard. 
Of course, Jasper did not know this, 
but the song sank unawares into 
his tiny soul, and stayed there. 
So Jasper grew up with a song in 
his heart, and the song troubled him. 
It told him that afar off there was 
a beautiful green aspen grove with 
blue sky above it, and Jasper longed 
to find the aspen grove. 
Now there was nothing to sing about 
at Jasper's home, and when he grew 
92 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

up to be a young man he began to 
think. Somewhere, he knew, there 
was a place of beauty, and because 
the meadow lark's song had made 
a poet of him he resolved to find it. 
His brothers, who had not been 
greeted at birth by a bird's song, 
could not understand him. Life 
seemed a very plain, measured-out 
affair to them. Why bother one's 
head about the unattainable? But 
Jasper 's song would not let him rest, 
and finally he left his home and 
started out in search of the Good, 
the True, and the Beautiful. 
Now all Jasper 's training had taught 
him that the way to get anywhere 
was to keep putting one foot before 
the other. That was the only way 
he knew of to find the Good, the 
True, and the Beautiful. So on he 
went up the road and over the hill 
— left foot, right foot, left foot, 
93 



THE RICHER LIFE 

right foot — trudging patiently along. 
The days went by, and ever before 
him stretched the brown road. It 
led through woods and fields and 
villages, but Jasper did not meet 
with the Good, the True, and the 
Beautiful. Every time he reached 
the top of a hill or a bend in the road 
he looked eagerly ahead for some- 
thing bright and unusual, but he 
was always disappointed. He met 
men and women, but they were 
just folks, queer or ordinary, and 
they could not tell him where to 
look for the object of his quest. 
Once he came to a great city, and en- 
tered it with joy, but its streets 
proved to be ugly and dirty and 
very confusing, and he was glad to 
come out on the other side. The 
Good, the True, and the Beautiful 
were not there. 

Finally, one gray day, he lost heart 
94 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

altogether, and sat down on a log 
by the wayside, and buried his head 
in his hands. And as he sat there, 
wrapt in woe, there came one sing- 
ing up the road. The song was like 
the one that lay slumbering in Jas- 
per's heart, and, hearing it, he 
looked up in spite of himself, and saw 
a burly fellow in a leathern apron. 
Seeing Jasper sitting in such a dis- 
consolate attitude, the stranger ap- 
proached and seated himself on the 
log at Jasper's side. 
"What is the matter, brother?" 
he inquired. "Has thy lady played 
thee false, or hast thou lost thy 
purse? Those are the two things 
which make most men miserable." 
"Neither," said Jasper. 
"Tell me," bade the other. "Let 
me help thee." 

Jasper looked at his big, hairy arms, 

his leathern apron, and his sooty 

95 



THE RICHER LIFE 

face, and replied: "Thou canst not 
help me. I have neither horse to be 
shod nor cart to be mended." 
At this the big fellow laughed a deep- 
throated laugh. 

"And why, pray, may not a black- 
smith be a philosopher?" 
Jasper pondered. 

"I never thought of that," said he. 
Then Jasper told the blacksmith 
of his hunger for the Good, the True, 
and the Beautiful, and the tale of his 
bootless quest. When he had finished, 
the blacksmith broke forth into a loud 
and hearty roar of laughter, slapping 
his knee with his mighty palm. 
"But I see no cause for mirth," 
said Jasper, surprised and nettled. 
"No," said the blacksmith, "and 
there are many other things that 
thou dost not see. That is because 
thou art more than half blind. 
Thou art like a man hunting all over 
96 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

the house for the coat that is on his 
back. Thou sayest that thou hast 
a song in thy heart? Hast thou 
looked there for Goodness, Truth, 
and Beauty?" 

"I understand thee not," quoth 
Jasper. 

"See," cried the blacksmith, point- 
ing to a little white flower that grew 
from the dirt and decaying wood 
under the log. "Here is a bit of 
Goodness, Truth, and Beauty at 
thy feet, and thou didst not see it. 
Thou art blind, I say. Now listen, 
that thine eyes may be opened. 
This little flower is pure white and 
perfect. See how gracefully it 
stands on its slender stem. See 
how beautifully alike and yet unlike 
are its five snowy petals. There 
is a whole world of the Good, the 
True, and the Beautiful in this 
little flower. And yet it grows from 
97 



THE RICHER LIFE 

the common earth beneath the 
shadow of a rotting log. It typifies 
the Creation and the Universe. It 
is part of God's plan, and is a 
product of His craftsmanship. I am 
a skilled workman, but I could not 
make a thing of beauty like that. 
And yet thou didst not see it! All 
about thee are the Good, the True, 
and the Beautiful — in sea and wood 
and sky, and in the hearts of thyself 
and thy fellows. The object of thy 
quest lies not at the end of the road, 
but on both sides of it and overhead. 
Yonder, at the edge of the village, 
is my dingy smithy. There I toil 
all day for my wife and children. 
But in the wall above my bellows 
is a little window that frames a 
square of blue sky, and through the 
open doorway I can see the green 
meadows, with the cattle in them, 
and the purple hills. There I see 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. 
Friends pass the door and shout a 
greeting, and I look into their hearts 
and find Goodness, Truth, and 
Beauty there. A spider has spun a 
web across my window pane, a perfect 
wheel of finest silk, and up in the 
pear tree, just within my sight, the 
robins have a nest, and busily come 
and go all day long. Beside my door 
the daisies bloom, and peep in at me 
when the wind blows. In all these 
I see the Good, the True, and the 
Beautiful, because mine eves are 
open. I watch them as I blow the 
fire in my forge, and then when I 
bend my back again to the anvil 
I needs must sing, 

"Go thy way, brother, back to the 
place whence thou earnest. I know 
not who thou art or what thy calling, 
but I know that the object of thy 
quest lies at thine own door." 



THE RICHER LIFE 

So saying, he arose and took his de- 
parture, singing . 

Now Jasper was young, and he did 
not believe all that the blacksmith 
had said, but for want of a better 
thing to do he picked up his staff, 
and set out again for home. 
And as he went he noticed many 
little white flowers by the roadside, 
and each had five snowy petals and 
stood on a graceful, slender stem. 
He began to look for them, instead 
of contemplating the brown wheel 
tracks; and so it came about that 
he saw many things besides — a 
flock of blackbirds, wheeling and 
alighting in a cornfield — a cloud that 
hung like thistledown over a hilltop 
— a collie that sat, with ears erect, 
guarding a flock of sheep — a little 
stone cottage that lay dozing behind 
a flaming laburnum — an old peas- 
ant couple that sat hand in hand on 
100 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

their doorstep in the gloaming. 
And by the time he reached the top 
of the hill overlooking his home town 
the song in his heart was awake 
again, and more joyous than ever 
before, and so many beautiful things 
thronged in upon his vision that 
there was not time to contemplate 
them all. Below him lay the village 
amid its ivyed elms, the white houses 
glistening in the sun like patches of 
snow, and the church spire, standing 
slim and graceful, in their midst. 
As he entered the village with spring- 
ing step, a maid, who had been his 
playmate, ran forth to meet him, 
and in her eyes he saw a light he had 
never observed before. And some- 
where a meadow lark was singing 
rapturously of a green aspen grove 
and the sunshine. 

When Jasper reached home his 
brothers asked him banteringly: 
101 



THE RICHER LIFE 

"Didst find the Good, the True, 
and the Beautiful, foolish Jasper?" 
And he replied, "I did." 

The story of Jasper is, you will 
notice, but a new version of the old 
story in the Fourth Reader (or it may 
have been the Third) which tells of 
two lads who went for a walk; one 
of them saw much to report and the 
other nothing at all. Which of these 
lads are you? Are you Jasper going 
or Jasper coming? It's a question 
worth considering, as I shall try 
to show. 

The human mind has such a tremen- 
dous amount of work to do that it is 
obliged to make use of labour-saving 
devices. According to the psy- 
chologists, it constantly seeks to 
make its work less arduous by re- 
ferring as many actions as possible 
to the memory and the reflex nerve 
102 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

centres. The mind is a general 
that has time for little save the issu- 
ing of orders. That is what they 
call the brain's ideo-motive force. 
The child has to devote his entire 
mind to the complex act of walking; 
divert his attention and he comes 
to grief. We experienced grown- 
ups simply give the word of com- 
mand and our legs do the rest. 
"Home/' we say, and our legs carry 
us there, giving our brains a chance 
to think of the stock market or our 
clothes or any other elevating topic. 
If every act of our fingers depended 
on the complete construction of a 
mental picture of it and a definite 
effort of the will we should scarcely 
finish dressing before bedtime. 
This delegating of our every-day 
actions to our various members pro- 
duces what we know as habit, and 
if you will think of all your motions 
103 



THE RICHER LIFE 

and actions in a single day you will 
see that 90 per cent, of them are the 
result of habit. 

Some habits are useful and some are 
not. I have a habit of smoothing 
my hair when I talk — a perfectly 
useless operation. I suppose once 
my brain told my hand to do it, but 
now my hand goes ahead and per- 
forms this precious function on its 
own account, and energy is wasted. 
But, in general, it is plain that habits 
are absolutely necessary if we are to 
accomplish anything at all, though 
General Brain is never relieved of 
the responsibility of seeing to it 
that the habits are good. 
All of this has been scientifically 
and thoroughly explained by Pro- 
fessor James and others. What I 
want to show is a certain specific 
failing that this habit-making facul- 
ty of ours is likely to lead us into; 
104 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

and that is the tendency of our minds 
to get lazy and let the habits do all 
the work. In a word, we are prone 
to get into a groove or rut. Some 
are born in ruts, some achieve ruts, 
and some are thrust into ruts, but 
in every case the rut is a soul-dead- 
ening thing, and the sooner we get 
out of it the better. You can't see 
out of a rut, and the Good, the True, 
and the Beautiful never lie at the 
end of it. Life in a rut is necessarily 
narrow and uninteresting. 
By this I do not mean to praise the 
butterfly life. Flitting is equally 
ineffectual. The unsystematic man 
is an abomination before the Lord. 
But there is a golden mean. It 
is the attitude that counts — the 
freshness of interest in all things, 
the youthfulness of the spirit. The 
Good, the True, and the Beautiful 
are on every hand for him who has 
105 



THE RICHER LIFE 

his eyes open. Don't be a mole; 
that is the text of my sermon. 
Now the best way I know of to force 
one's self to look up out of the rut, 
and eventually to crawl out, is to 
train the sense of observation. This 
is easier for some people than it is 
for others. John Burroughs says, 
"Some people seem born with eyes 
in their heads, and others with 
buttons or painted marbles/' And 
it is easier to form the habit of 
observation in childhood than in 
maturity, and I believe that this 
should be one of the first proposi- 
tions in the study of pedagogics. 
But to develop this faculty is pos- 
sible even for the oldest and blindest 
of us. 

Now the ways and means of accom- 
plishing this purpose are manifold. 
The whole field of art and literature 
and science lies open to us, and, 

106 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

greatest and best of all, the intimate 
study of nature. 

Nature study, I find, requires some 
explanation. The American type 
of mind looks askance at any theory 
or pursuit that does not produce 
practical, tangible results. Hence 
the student of nature finds himself 
obliged to defend his principles. 
It is not enough for him to say 
that he prefers to know a hemlock 
from a spruce. He must justify 
himself in terms of the practical. 
Such justification, however, is not 
impossible. 

A vast deal of twaddle is written 
about the beauties of nature, but 
that's not the thing. To exclaim 
over the beauty of a sunset indicates 
no very deep understanding. We 
Americans are inclined to look for 
short cuts. We pride ourselves on 
our ability to appreciate things that 
107 



THE RICHEB LIFE 

we know little or nothing about. 
The true value of nature study, for 
old as well as young, lies in the 
training of the observation, a fac- 
ulty that civilization is doing its 
best to destroy in us. It took no 
effort on the part of the savage to 
read sermons in stones, and books 
in the running brooks. 
We go into the country, and we see 
trees and fields and hills, and most 
of us do not entirely miss their mes- 
sage. But for many the columbine 
and blue gentian bloom unheeded by 
the wayside, and the yellow warbler 
sings unheard and unseen in the 
thicket. Eyes have we, but we see 
not; ears, but we hear not. These 
avenues of sensuous delight and 
intellectual satisfaction have be- 
come clogged through disuse, and 
every day we miss something of the 
wonder and the joy of life. 
108 



THE EYES OF JASPER 

Nature study is simply one way — 
perhaps the best way — of training 
the observation, but the main thing 
is to get the eyes open somehow. 
And get your heart open, too. 
When you were a child the world 
was more interesting to you — life 
was richer. Get young again, for 
except ye become as little children 
ye shall not enter the Kingdom of 
Heaven. 

I know it isn 't easy. The old habits 
are strong. Old dogs don't take to 
new tricks. You want to make 
the world more interesting to your- 
self. You want to live the richer 
life. But the burdens press down 
upon you. The environment is 
all wrong. Circumstances are 
against you, and the rut is deep. 
It's hard, I know, but not half so 
hard as you think it is. Look up 
out of the rut and try it. Look for 
109 



THE RICHER LIFE 

simple things. Life is too short to 
spend it in a search for the unattain- 
able. Jasper found that out. This 
is the world we are living in; for this 
life there is no other. If we shut 
our eyes to the good things in it, 
we have only ourselves to blame. 
Look about you and observe the 
Good, the True, and the Beautiful 
that are close at hand. Look for 
them in God's growing things, in 
good books, in the hearts of your 
friends. And when again you bend 
your back to the anvil, think of the. 
new things you have seen, and per- 
haps you'll be singing, after all. 
Heaven lies about us in our maturity 
as well as in our infancy, if we will 
but open our eyes and look. 



110 











<3 



O 



o 



NCE upon a time there lived a 
widow with three young daugh- 
ters. Their father had been a 
nobleman, but toward the end 
of his life he had staked the 
greater part of his estate on a 
cause that had failed, so that 
he left but little behind him. 
Now the widow was shrewd and 
she loved her daughters, so she 
began planning how their for- 
tunes might be retrieved. But 
111 



THE RICHER LIFE 

cudgel her brain as she might, she 
could think of no way to make them 
all rich and happy, for the reason 
that there was only one wealthy 
and handsome prince in the whole 
neighbourhood, and he could not 
marry all three. So she at last de- 
cided to make the best of a bad 
matter, and ensnare him for one of 
her daughters, in the hope that the 
others might have their chance 
later. 

Unfortunately, these three daughters 
— Esmerelda, Dorothea, and Mar- 
guerite - - had been born a little too 
late, for fairy godmothers had be- 
come exceedingly scarce in that 
country, and there was only one 
for all three girls. However, the 
mother went to her for counsel. 
"I beg of thee a boon," she said. 
"My daughters are poor, and when 
I die I know not what will become 
112 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

of them, unless one of the three 
marries the prince. Canst thou not 
give them such exceeding beauty 
that the prince, seeing one of them, 
will fall in love with her, and desire 
her for his wife?" 

The fairy godmother thought a 
long time, before answering. At 
length she said: 

"Alas! I would that I could grant 
thy request, for I love my godchil- 
dren; but these be lean days for fairy 
godmothers, as thou knowest. For- 
merly I should have had three wishes 
apiece for them, but now I have but 
one to go around among the three. 
I will make Dorothea the beautiful 
one, for she already has the blue eyes 
and the golden hair. For Esmer- 
elda, take this ring. In it is a rare 
and beautiful ruby from India. 
Take it to Nathan the Jew and sell 
it for a great price. It will not be 
113 



THE RICHER LIFE 

enough for all three daughters, but 
it will provide fine raiment and a 
dowry for one. Let Esmerelda have 
this, since she is the eldest." 
"But what of little Marguerite?" 
asked the mother. 

"Alas!" cried the fairy godmother, 
"I have nothing to give her. But 
send her to me, and I will teach her 
such things as I can." 
So the three daughters went to their 
fairy godmother, one by one. And 
to Esmerelda she gave the ruby ring 
and her blessing; and to Dorothea 
she gave the gift of beauty and her 
blessing; but to little Marguerite 
she gave only her blessing, and kissed 
her on the lips. 

As the three maidens grew to woman- 
hood Esmerelda learned to dress and 
act like a great lady. She wore fine 
silks and satins and velvets and jew- 
els, and sat up on her white palfry 
114 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

like a queen. Moreover, it was 
known that there was a comfortable 
dowry waiting for him who should 
claim her hand. So when, through 
the careful management of her 
mother, it came to pass that the rich 
and handsome prince met Esmer- 
elda, he was so taken by her queenly 
air and aristocratic bearing and the 
evidence of her affluence that, be- 
ing a man of the world, he at once 
became her suitor. 

Meanwhile Dorothea had been grow- 
ing beautiful beyond description. 
Being poor, she dressed simply, but 
this served to accentuate her beauty 
the more. She bathed her throat 
and brow with milk, and her eyes 
with dew from the cups of lilies, and 
she combed her hair seven times 
daily, so that it was like gold floss 
in its simple blue silken circlet. Her 
throat was like white roses, her 
115 



THE RICHER LIFE 

eyes like the larkspur, and her body 
as lithe and graceful as the reeds in 
the marshes. 

So when the prince, who had come 
to woo Esmerelda, saw fair Dorothea 
he straightway fell heels over 
head in love with her beauty. 
What were Esmerelda's satins and 
jewels, he asked, compared with eyes 
and hair like these? Besides, he 
had discovered a little vertical line 
between Esmerelda's eyes, and 
sharpness in her words. Oh, he was 
a shrewd prince, and a poet as well. 
But no sooner had the prince started 
to court Dorothea than he began 
to perceive her failings. She was 
not perfect, either. She was heaven- 
ly to look upon, but her speech was 
like the cooing of doves — all soft- 
ness and monotony. She had not 
half the wit of his mother's serving 
maid. His wooing became silent, 
116 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

for one cannot talk forever to a 
voiceless flower. The prince found 
himself between the horns of a 
dilemma. 

One day, as he was walking in the 
fields beside his horse, trying to 
decide which of the two ladies to 
wed, he came upon little Marguer- 
ite, playing with a hound. Now 
Marguerite was grown to woman- 
hood, but she had neither Esmerelda's 
queenly bearing nor Dorothea's 
beauty. Her dress was plain, and 
there were freckles across the 
bridge of her funny little nose. But 
her eyes were bright and merry, 
and the prince paused to speak to 
her. Before he knew it he was seated 
on the river bank beside her, while 
she talked vivaciously of Hugo 
the hound, her flower garden in the 
orchard, the old cobbler in the vil- 
lage who had once been to the wars, 
117 



THE RICHER LIFE 

and ever so many interesting and 
amusing things, speaking sometimes 
seriously and sometimes lightly, but 
always saying something worth the 
hearing. And the prince, weary of 
Esmerelda 's haughty affectations 
and Dorothea's soft inanities, en- 
joyed her company till sundown. 
Well, the upshot of it all was, as you 
may have guessed, that the prince 
married little Marguerite, and they 
lived happily ever after; and all 
because the fairy godmother, lacking 
other gifts, had taught Marguerite 
how to talk. 

Now the moral of this tale is not 
how to capture a rich and handsome 
husband, for princes like this one 
do not live nowadays, and if one did, 
I don't know of three sisters who 
would take so much trouble to 
catch him. Times have changed. 
But it is just as true to-day as it was 
118 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

then that two thirds of the people in 
the world don't know how to talk 
and never realize why wealth and 
beauty don't make up for the lack 
of conversational ability. Pearls 
fall from the lips of some, vipers from 
others ; but most people merely blow 
bubbles, and bubble blowing be- 
comes tiresome in time. 
All of which is a rather frivolous 
introduction to a somewhat serious 
subject; for I believe that "Can you 
talk?" is one of the important ques- 
tions on life's examination paper. 

Evolutionists point with pride to the 
exact period in faunal development 
when the spine superseded the noto- 
chord, when a centralized nervous 
ganglion first appeared, when toes 
were produced on mammalian ex- 
tremities. They tell us that a mon- 
key walked erect for some reason or 
119 



THE RICHER LIFE 

other, and that he came into posses- 
sion of a cerebrum, a prehensile tail, 
and that priceless treasure, three 
small bones in the middle ear. 
Then they leap light-heartedly over 
the intervening gap, and lo! you 
have man. 

The anthropologist then takes up 
the good work, and has a wee bit 
to say about the development of 
the artistic instinct, and other 
things which are vastly interesting 
so far as they go. But what I 
want to know is, who invented 
speech? Was it monkey, man, or 
monkey-man? Did some simian 
mother, in a moment of anxiety, 
suddenly find herself able to cry 
out: "Here, you, James Edward, 
come away from that crocodile ! " Or 
did man, after he had acquired 
sufficient cerebral power, pain- 
fully invent the system of commu- 
120 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

nicating thoughts by prearranged 
variations of vocal noises? I'm 
afraid the scientists will never tell 
me; but I want to know, for I want 
to compose a eulogy to that an- 
thropoid ape or antediluvian genius. 
Or perhaps God handed the gift to 
Adam ready made. One may as 
well believe so. Holy Writ is au- 
thority for the theory. And Adam, 
I am sure, was as pleased to receive 
it as you or I would be if we had been 
born dumb. With what childlike 
joy he straightway rushed about 
the garden, saying to this creature, 
'You are an armadillo," and to 
that flower, "You are joepye-weed," 
or Edenese words to that effect. 
However the gift of speech origi- 
nated, it is one of the most priceless 
of our human possessions. For 
conversation is a distinctly human 
attribute. The beasts of the field 
121 



THE RICHER LIFE 

possess it only in the most imper- 
fect degree. Conversation belongs 
only to creatures with souls, and I 
am inclined to think that the value 
of our conversation is more or less 
indicative of the size and value of 
our souls. At any rate, I observe 
that neglect of conversation and 
neglect of our spiritual selves go 
hand in hand, and I believe that an 
improvement in our conversation 
would benefit our souls and so do 
much to enrich our individual lives. 
Man is so thoroughly a social being 
that if you place him on a desert 
island with no one to talk to he is 
likely to go mad. But place him 
in a parlour, and give him every 
chance in the world to develop the 
art of soul-satisfying conversation, 
and what does he do? Nine times 
out of ten he puts his brain to sleep, 
and lets his larynx utter such sounds 
122 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

as it will. A gorilla can do as much. 
His conversation is quite soulless. 
Therefore, the question is some- 
times asked, and not without per- 
tinence, Is conversation coming to 
be a lost art in America? If it is, 
we deserve the worst our critics 
can say of us, for we become essen- 
tially as dumb beasts. 
Mr. John Butler Yeats, a cultured 
Irish artist, father of William But- 
ler Yeats, the poet, has been in this 
country for some little time, study- 
ing us. He says that our conver- 
sation is vapid, because we lack 
the critical instinct. Things are 
"perfectly lovely" with us, or 
"awful" or "grand" or "punk," as 
the case may be, and we let it go 
at that. Detailed and thoughtful 
criticism we avoid as being too irk- 
some, and so we are losing the art 
of conversation. 

123 



THE RICHER LIFE 

This art, like many others, was at 
its height in the days of Good Queen 
Bess. Men and women took time 
to talk then, and the English lan- 
guage became enriched. The spirit 
of the Elizabethans still lingers, 
says Mr. Yeats, in the Irish people. 
They talk. They are never too 
busy to stop and hold converse. 
They are witty, voluble, conversa- 
tionally resourceful. They roll their 
r's, and enjoy the sonorousness of 
their own phrases. 
Mr. Yeats , may be right. We do 
elide and abbreviate and seek the 
path of least resistance in conversa- 
tion. But I am always a little 
suspicious of foreign criticism. For 
who of us is tribally unbiased? To 
us the Frenchman is frothy and ner- 
vous, the German heavy and coarse, 
the Englishman dull and stupid 
or foppish, and the Irishman pug- 
124 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

nacious and tiresome. Thus we 
are all prone to generalize unfairly, 
and it may be that Mr. Yeats has 
not fully appreciated our style. 
We must, nevertheless, admit that 
our parlour intercourse is usually 
not soul-satisfying; and there is 
surely one way in which we Ameri- 
cans do err most grievously. I 
refer to the curse of talking shop. 
Shop talk has spoiled more good 
conversation than dull brains. It 
indicates a restricted intellect, a 
foreshortened horizon, the narrow 
life of the rut, the little soul. The 
modern science of dentistry is a won- 
derful thing, but think of bicuspids 
and bridge work as an exclusive 
after-dinner topic! And the worst 
offenders are those who ought to 
know better — artists, musicians, 
and "litt'ry" folk. You can make 
any good calling a bore by talking 
125 



THE RICHER LIFE 

too much about it. That's what 
I don't like about missionaries. 
Good people, they are, too. 
Oh, get a broader perspective to life ! 
Give your soul elbow room. Get 
some ideas of your own, and put 
them into words Don 't be a 
parrot ! 

I believe that this question of con- 
versation is more important than it 
looks at first glance. It strikes 
down close to the roots of life. For 
the spiritual nature is man's great- 
est heritage, and the quality of his 
speech is an indication of the quality 
of his soul. That is why we abhor 
profanity; it is the small soul's sub- 
stitute for original expression. 
Conversely, training in the art of 
conversation is one way of bene- 
fiting the soul and enriching life. 
The very effort to express a thought 
crystallizes it, and we straightway 
126 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

understand it better ourselves. 
Your deep thinker is usually a good 
talker, for the exchange of ideas is 
a mental stimulus. More than that, 
it is soul exercise, and at the same 
time produces the food upon which 
the soul is nourished. 
It is not the quantity of conversa- 
tion but the quality that counts. 
Mere talk is cheap. That is why 
we value it so little and waste it so 
much. We fill our bargain counters 
with remnants, often tawdry or shop- 
worn; it's too much trouble to reach 
for the better grade goods on the 
top shelves. But the effort pays, 
if we will make it. Every honest 
attempt at good conversation is a 
stone in the building of character, 
along with the resisted tempta- 
tion and the well-wrought piece of 
craftsmanship. 

The neglect of this effort, and the 
127 



THE RICHER LIFE 

slipping into slovenly conversational 
habits, indicate weakness of char- 
acter and an ingrowing soul; 
whereas the cultivation of the art 
is a means, ready to hand, of en- 
riching life. For how much richer 
and happier is that life which is 
lighted by the wit and humour and 
subtle charm of good conversation, 
based on real thoughts, than that 
whose only soul language is shop 
talk, gossip, or drawing-room in- 
anities ! 

Yes, this is surely one of the ways of 
getting more out of life — one of the 
ways of reaching up out of the rut. 
Just how to go about it is a question 
for the individual to solve, but the 
solution is usually not hard, and the 
man or woman who avoids it 
through slothfulness deserves only 
scolding. 

There is one person who must not 
128 



THE PRINCE AND THE MAIDENS 

be scolded, however, and that is the 
one who "loses his tongue/' as we 
say, in company. Shyness is a mis- 
fortune, not a fault, and a great 
stumbling-block in the way. Par- 
ents of shy children should study 
them carefully, and help them to 
learn to talk. And if you are one of 
those shy grown children; if you 
long to open your heart and speak, 
but cannot; if your tongue cleaves 
to the roof of your mouth, and the 
best thoughts born within you die 
before they leave your lips in 
commonplace utterances, you have 
a harder task before you than your 
neighbour's, and the more credit 
to you if you conquer. Meanwhile, 
take courage in the thought that for 
purposes of soul culture one friend 
is better than a parlour full of mag- 
pies. The art of conversation does 
not mean merely the ability to enter- 
129 



THE RICHER LIFE 

tain brilliantly, and I doubt not that 
some of the world's best sayings 
have been uttered in quiet family 
circles, where no record was ever 
made of them save on the souls of 
those who spoke and listened. 



130 




*Che Ari o/Bernice WA^aiha 




NCE upon a time there were 
two sisters named Bernice and 
Agatha. They were both excel- 
lent persons, with the desire in 
their hearts to reach up to 
better things and to be of some 
service to their fellow-creatures. 
They were unmarried and lived 
together in a little white house 
on High Street. Their modest 
wants being supplied by the in- 
come from a small inheritance, 
they were relieved from the 
131 



THE RICHER LIFE 

necessity of spending their lives in the 
quest for daily bread, and they had 
outgrown sordid aims and youthful 
follies. They were very excellent 
ladies, with clear consciences, a 
healthy appetite for those things 
which bring satisfaction to the 
soul, and a refined appreciation of 
beauty. 

Now Bernice and Agatha were much 
alike in the fundamentals of life, 
but they sought soul food in different 
directions, just as the humming- 
bird and the robin differ in their 
methods. 

Bernice had developed ideals of 
culture that led her into a literary 
circle. After many hours spent in 
the town library she read a beautiful 
paper on Robert and Elizabeth 
Browning before the circle. 
Agatha, on the other hand, admitted 
that she didn't enjoy Browning; 
132 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

she preferred to stay at home and 
read the novels of George Eliot, 
in which she found interesting things 
about real folks. 

Bernice took up arts and crafts 
with enthusiasm (she pronounced 
crafts with a very broad a) and did 
stencil work and hammered brass 
in art nouveau designs. 
Agatha made the most perfect 
buttonholes in the county. 
Bernice's room was decorated in a 
close harmony of grays and greens, 
and she permitted only golden-rod 
and white roses in her Wedgwood 
vase. 

Agatha's room was decorated in 
chintz effects — chintz looked so 
old-fashioned. And she kept in her 
vases asters and sweet peas, and 
anything she liked. 
By and by the tastes of the two 
sisters grew very far apart. Bernice 
133 



THE RICHER LIFE 

became so artistic that Agatha's 
homely ideals seemed very uncul- 
tured to her. 

"Agatha, dear/ 5 she would say, 
"I wish you would put that atro- 
cious old painting of the lighthouse 
up in the garret. I will give you 
a mezzotint reproduction of Corot 
to take its place." 
"Put it away?" cried Agatha. "Why, 
it was father's!" 

"I know," expostulated Bernice, 
"but it is horribly out of drawing. 
The perspective and composition 
are faulty, and the colours are far 
too intense." 

"I don't know anything about that/ 5 
retorted Agatha. "I only know 
that I like it. And if I like a thing, 
it's good enough art for me." 
Bernice sighed and assumed the 
attitude of a pre-Raphaelite maiden 
gazing out of the window. 
134 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

Agatha scowled, and started a hem. 
Matters went from bad to worse. 
Bernice gorged herself with art. 
She went to Boston and enjoyed a 
week's dissipation at the opera and 
among the art galleries. She met 
some tremendously clever (not to 
say queer) people. Agatha stayed 
at home and won a burnt- 
wood Indian's head at a whist 
party, and hung it on the parlour 
wall. 

When visitors came, Bernice started 
aesthetic conversations on genius, 
art, and modern German drama; 
Agatha, out of pure stubbornness, 
changed the subject to strawberry 
preserves and spring house cleaning. 
Bernice became so extremely artistic 
that she actually grew thin; Agatha 
remained domestic and stout. Ber- 
nice felt that her sister lacked all 
refinement of taste; Agatha con- 
135 



THE RICHER LIFE 

sidered Bernice silly, affected, and 
wanting in common-sense. 
Finally Uncle John came to visit 
them. Now Uncle John was so 
wise and good that both sisters 
looked up to him, and each antici- 
pated a sort of justification of her 
mental attitude. Uncle John saw 
at once that something was wrong, 
and it didn't take him long to find 
out what it was. 

One evening before he left he 
undertook a little fatherly advice. 
"You girls must get over this non- 
sense," said he. 'You are both 
to blame. Agatha, you are troubled 
with fatty degeneration of the soul. 
You ought to wake up and get 
acquainted with more of the re- 
finements of life. Beauty is a phys- 
ical property and not altogether 
a matter of taste. It is governed 
by laws, and the better you under- 
136 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

stand those laws the more you 
will appreciate beauty. And the 
sooner you come to the full appre- 
ciation of beauty the better it will 
be for your soul. Bernice, you are 
suffering from a bad case of fiddle- 
sticks. You have acquired a super- 
ficial smattering of art talk. You 
have learned the patter of the cult. 
You have been hovering around 
some lofty truths and never getting 
at the honey. You have fallen 
into the common error of supposing 
that queer, one-sided people are 
children of genius, and therefore 
more to be desired than the great 
mass of mankind. You consider 
human nature bourgeois. Agatha 
thinks that art is foolishness; you 
think that it is everything, and 
neither of you knows what art is." 
Then he delivered a brief lecture 
on art, at the close of which the sis- 
137 



THE RICHER LIFE 

ters arose coldly, said "good night/' 
and went to their rooms. 
After Uncle John had departed, 
neither of the sisters alluded to 
what he had said. Bernice went 
obstinately on her way and steeped 
herself in artificiality; but Agatha 
took Uncle John's words to heart 
and pondered them. She began to 
study into the meaning of it all, 
and struggled to get her eyes open. 
She went and stood before the 
Indian's head and looked at it 
a long time, until she discovered 
that it did ■ not belong with the 
simple colonial furniture of the room. 
So she took it down and quietly 
put it away. 

One day she discovered that the 
various hues of the phlox in her 
garden did not harmonize, and, al- 
though her mother had planted 
them, she uprooted the offending 
138 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

plants and transferred them to the 
other side of the garden, beyond the 
larkspurs. 

At last she devoted three days to a 
study of the painting of the light- 
house, and with tears in her eyes 
finally removed it. 
Agatha came to learn that some 
things and some combinations of 
things are more beautiful than 
others, and she worked painstak- 
ingly to understand. Bernice had 
a good copy of a painting by 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Agatha 
studied it long and conscientiously 
until she discovered wherein it was 
better than the painting of the 
lighthouse. She read a little about 
art in the secret of her room, until 
at last she came to feel that she 
knew a few of the fundamental 
principles. She took no critic's 
dictum as gospel, but allowed her 
139 



THE RICHER LIFE 

judgment to be guided by those 
who knew better than she. She 
never got to the point of talking 
learnedly like Bernice, but she got 
her eyes open at last, and found her- 
self examining all things with a view 
to discovering what beauty lay in 
them. She gained pleasure in 
beautifying her home and her garden; 
and her soul, she discovered, was 
nourished by a contemplation of 
things which her new judgment told 
her were beautiful. 
When Uncle John came again he 
found Bernice just the same, only 
a little sour at the majority of peo- 
ple, with whom she had lost patience. 
But in Agatha's eyes he read a new 
happiness, as she showed him her 
house and her garden and her hum- 
ble personal treasures, and talked 
with him simply of her quest for 
the beautiful. 

140 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

"Blessed be thou, Agatha/' quoth 
he, "for thou hast accomplished 
something and thy soul hath grown." 
Of Bernice, who had been talking 
ecstatically with him of Rodin 
and Sudermann, he said nothing. 

In matters touching upon art I 
find a large proportion of man- 
kind — and especially womankind 
— divided pretty generally into two 
classes: those who gush and those 
who scoff. I am not speaking of 
those who have a sane and healthy 
knowledge of art, but of that vast 
majority who have but a little 
time to devote to its study. I 
believe that both classes are wrong 
in their attitude, because they both 
treat art as an intangible product 
of genius quite apart from life. 
They both treat knowledge as they 
treat clothes. One person dresses 
141 



THE RICHER LIFE 

a la mode and feels, therefore, like a 
gentleman or a lady; the other 
dresses "for comfort," and scorns 
finery. 

The gushing class is amusing and 
irritating. Lacking a sense of 
humour themselves, they do not 
realize that their lofty vapourings 
seem ridiculous to the bulk of their 
fellows. Or, if they have a slight 
sense of this, they avoid it by herd- 
ing with one another. Hence these 
groups of "clever" people who fore- 
gather to congratulate themselves 
that they are not as other men are. 
The scoffing class needs scolding, 
like all who sit in the seat of the 
scornful. Their crass ignorance is 
often but thinly veiled beneath a 
sneer. An honest philistine I can 
sympathize with, but not the 
materialist who pities my poor 
enthusiasms. 

142 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

These two classes are at opposite 
poles; they seldom get together on 
common ground, and that's a bad 
thing for men and women, for 
higher civilization will come only 
with tolerance, better understand- 
ing of one another, and the de- 
struction of unreasoning prejudice. 
Therefore it has seemed to me worth 
while to look dispassionately at this 
question, and, laying aside precon- 
ceived notions, to ask, What is art? 
and, What good is it, anyway? 
The effort is worth while because, 
if art is good for anything, it should 
be a means of enriching life, and 
now that we have signed the eman- 
cipation proclamation of our souls, 
that is what we are looking for. 
To go back to first principles, just 
a word as to the function of beauty 
in human life: 

This is a beautiful world. Beauty 
143 



THE RICHER LIFE 

is an attribute of nearly every 
natural object — of sky, of hills, 
of trees, of birds, of flowers. If 
we have eyes, we perceive beauty 
on every hand. Our first impulse 
upon seeing a sunset, a mountain 
lake, or a rose is to exclaim, "Isn't 
it beautiful?" Their reasons for 
being, their utilitarian functions 
have no place in our first thoughts. 
Beauty is the great fact that we 
grasp. Beauty is one of the greatest 
facts in the universe. 
There are those cold scientists who 
would prove that all beauty is 
utilitarian. The lily is beautiful 
to attract the pollen-scattering but- 
terfly; the oriole is beautiful to 
attract his mate at breeding time. 
But I am inclined to think that 
the scientist would be sore put 
to it to explain all beauty on these 
grounds. Beauty, I believe, has 
144 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

small practical value in the world, 
from a material point of view. God 
gave us beauty for the delectation 
of our souls, and that's reason 
enough. 

Beauty, therefore, is one of the most 
nourishing of soul foods, and that 
soul is richest and gets the most 
out of life which contemplates 
beauty the most. Soul life is the 
ethical life. Would you learn life's 
most fundamental ethical truths? 
Consider the lilies of the field. 
Beauty is as necessary to the growth 
of the soul as water is to the body. 
Every time the mind dwells upon 
an unclean or ugly thing, the soul 
is injured; every time it rejoices 
in a beautiful thing, the soul is fed. 
Now art, I take it, is man-created 
beauty. It can never surpass 
nature, but it can interpret nature 
to the soul, and it adds to the sum 
145 



THE RICHER LIFE 

total of beauty in the world. Man 
must ever be making things. When 
he | makes ugly things, he makes 
things that can injure the soul; 
when he makes beautiful things, 
he makes things that can enrich life ; 
and that is art. 

Art is the visible, tangible, or audi- 
ble evidence of man's relation to 
beauty. It is an uplifting mood 
crystallized. 
Not everything that we call art is 

worth v of the name. If it does 
*/ 

not touch life, if it fails to satisfy 
the soul's appetite for beauty, it 
does not fulfil its mission. I care 
not how excellent the technique 
or how startling the idea, I care 
not what the critics may say; if it 
fails in 'these functions it is not art. 
Therefore, it behooves us all to 
consider the fundamental truths of 
art, and not accept other people's 
146 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

opinions. That is the one great 
error of the superficial dilettante. 
He is a parrot. He does not trust 
his own judgment. He learns the 
names of painters, and sculptors, 
and poets, and composers. He talks 
learnedly of schools, and technique, 
and colour, and composition. He 
looks down upon the man less 
learned than he. And all the time 
he misses the great truth. He goes 
to the opera, and if the opera has 
been pronounced great, he accepts 
it as such and deceives himself into 
thinking that he enjoys it. He 
raves over a monotone reproduction 
of some old master, and would scorn 
the criticism of a layman who found 
fault with the drawing, when the 
truth is that the original graced the 
wall of a cathedral, sixty feet in the 
air, and was loved because it was 
a masterpiece of colour. Dilettant- 
147 



THE RICHER LIFE 

ism is generally a self-deception and 
a curse. 

And that really explains the raison 
d'etre of the scoffer. Honest man, 
he hates the insincerity of all this 
superficial patter. But there he 
stops, v Because the gusher has 
learned it all wrong, the scoffer 
considers it not worth learning at 
all. 

If anything, I believe the ignoramus 
is worse than the dilettante. Let 
him consider a moment. How 
would he like to live in an artless 
world? Suppose there were no 
pictures. Suppose architecture were 
all based on the utilitarianism of 
the boiler shop or the chicken coop. 
Suppose there were no music. Surely 
art has its place. He must 
admit that some artistic creations 
give him pleasure. Then why not 
follow that lead and get more 
148 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

pleasure? There are more beautiful 
things to be brought to his soul's 
attention than he has ever dreamt 
of in his philosophy. 
That is the true, sane reason for 
studying art. Such a study cer- 
tainly does open new vistas to the 
soul. By taking thought we can 
discover new and deeper beauties, 
and a beauty discovered is a morsel 
for the soul. The study of art on 
that basis is worth while. The 
study of art simply to make one 
seem accomplished or learned is 
despicable, like all other social pre- 
tenses. The sham art lover is not 
helping his soul a bit, and the worst 
of it is he very likely doesn't realize 
that he is shamming. 
It comes down to this, that neither 
the gusher nor the scoffer knows 
enough about the true meaning of 
art. Complete enjoyment of works 
149 



THE RICHER LIFE 

of art, and the fullest benefit to 
be derived therefrom, depend upon 
understanding and genuine appre- 
ciation, and these come from study 
based upon a fundamental concep- 
tion of the real meaning of art and 
beauty. 

Now, by the study of art I do not 
mean courses in an art school, 
or wide reading on art subjects. 
I do not mean familiarity witk 
names or the ability to classify 
types. If I did, there would be but 
small hope for the busy worker to 
whom circumstances have denied 
the time to indulge in these things. 
There are beautiful things and ugly 
things on every hand. The proc- 
esses of reproduction have been so 
perfected that the poorest of us 
need not be without pictures. But 
this same ease of reproduction has 
poured in upon us an ocean of pic- 
150 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

tures that are as far from art as the 
east is from the west. We must 
study into the truth of this matter 
and train the sense of observation 
and discrimination. 
In this commercial age men have 
builded ugly temples to Mammon, 
which smite the eye in every city; 
but here and there has arisen a 
man like Stanford White, whose 
perfect sense of proportion and 
ability to visualize results have given 
us buildings whose beauty is a joy 
forever. We need not go to the Old 
World to see beauty in architecture. 
Good music, too, is not denied us, 
and we have always at hand the 
soul-satisfying charm of good books 
— true poetry and smooth-running 
prose — if we will but lay down the 
latest novel and dip into them. 
And then there are the homes we 
live in — houses and gardens. Here 
151 



THE RICHER LIFE 

we may create beauty with our own 
hands. Here we may learn the 
value of simplicity and restraint, 
as the Greeks learned it long ago. 
Yes, there is art enough and to 
spare for the poorest of us, but we 
shut our eyes to it and scorn it, 
either because we fancy that it is not 
worthy of our exalted intellects, 
or because we consider the whole 
thing fol-de-rol. There is a means 
ready at hand whereby hungry and 
oppressed souls may find release 
and enrichment by opening the mind 
to the real meaning of beauty in 
art. 

We are just workers, you and I, 
in the factory of the world. We 
have but little time to take a finish- 
ing course in art; we have more 
important matters to attend to. 
We are busy making money, or 
acquiring some other temporal bene- 
152 



BERNICE AND AGATHA 

fit. But what shall it profit a man 
if he shall gain the whole world and 
lose his own soul, or what shall a 
man give in exchange for his soul? 
So let us think of the needs of our 
souls now and then. Let us not 
starve them. Let us feast our eyes, 
when we can, upon beauty in nature 
and art. When next we pass down 
the city street, let us raise our eyes 
from the shop windows and see if 
there be not some beauty some- 
where. 

Let those gush who will; let them 
scoff who will. We can afford to 
smile indulgently at those long- 
haired, be-sandaled ones who prate 
ravishingly of Ibsen and Whistler, 
and whose souls are as vigorous 
as a chocolate cream. We can 
afford to pity those who pass along 
the narrow rut and glean their 
spiritual nourishment from the 
153 



THE RICHER LIFE 

Sunday paper. But you and I are 
truth seekers, and if there be any 
virtue in art, if there be in it any 
power to raise our spiritual selves 
to a higher plane of development, 
we mean to seek and find it. 



154 





NCE upon a time, ever so 
long ago, there lived in China 
a little, weazened-up yellow 
man. It was in the Ming 
dynasty, whenever that was. 
My book says thirteen hun- 
dred and sixty-eight to six- 
teen hundred and forty-four. 
Like most of us in nineteen 
hundred and eleven, his chief 
occupation was earning 
enough cash to buy enough 
rice and fish to nourish his 
155 



THE RICHER LIFE 

shrivelled little body sufficiently to 
make it possible for him to earn 
more cash to buy more rice and fish, 
and so on, ad infinitum. His name 
was Ching, or Wong, or Ching 
Wong, or whatever outlandish name 
you will. Somewhere in Ching's 
disgusting little body there slum- 
bered a soul about as big as one 
grain of mustard seed. It was 
an untroublesome soul that let him 
beat his wife and do many vile 
things. Ching's possession of a soul 
was not in itself remarkable. Most 
of us have them — much like Ching's. 
But one day Ching's soul woke up! 
Ching earned the cash for his rice 
and fish by making pots for other 
people to cook rice and fish in. He 
made the pots good enough to 
sell for cash, and no better. Why 
should he? It would not be prudent 
to make them so well that they 
156 



THE STORY OF CHING WONG 

would never break, for then, by and 
by, his occupation would be gone, 
and how would he get rice and 
fish then? And it really didn't 
matter if they did happen to be 
scratched and uneven. Folks 
simply wanted pots that would 
hold water and not crack in the 
fire. 

But one day Ching conceived the 
idea of making an especially good 
pot. It w r as his soul that told him 
to do it, but he didn't know that. 
So he made a good pot. It was a 
very good pot, indeed. It was 
round and smooth and graceful. He 
spoiled many pots in making it, 
and wasted much valuable time, 
but he didn't care. When the good 
pot was done he didn't try to sell it, 
but cleaned a place for it on the 
shelf and sat and looked at it. It 
pleased him greatly, and as he sat 
157 



THE RICHER LIFE 

and admired it his soul grew — 
just a little bit. 

After awhile the good pot ceased 
to satisfy Ching's soul, and it 
clamoured for another. So Ching 
made another good pot, better than 
the first. Then he made other good 
pots, and soon he made all his pots 
good pots, even though they brought 
no more cash. It pleased him to 
know that he could make good pots. 
One day Ching saw a piece of glazed 
pottery with blossoms in it in a 
mandarin's window. It was green, 
shiny, and very delicate and beau- 
tiful. After that his soul troubled 
him a great deal. Finally he could 
stand it no longer, and he journeyed 
to the big town, where he paid a 
skilled potter much cash to teach him 
how to make delicate, coloured pots 
with glazed surfaces. Then he went 
home, and whenever he found time 
158 



THE STORY OF CHING WONG 

lie made delicate vessels with col- 
oured, glazed surfaces. These he did 
not sell, but put them on his shelf 
and gazed at them when he was 
tired. 

By and by he found himself desir- 
ing to make something even more 
beautiful, and he set forth again 
to learn what the ages had taught 
men about making porcelain. 
Finally the great inspiration of 
Ching Wong's life came to him. 
He resolved to make a vase that 
should be a perfect vase — the most 
beautiful vase that had ever been 
made. He made and destroyed 
dozens before he found a shape that 
should satisfy his soul. Then he 
made and destroyed many more 
before he hit upon just the soft 
sky-blue tint that he wanted. At 
last it was done. It was a very 
small vase, but it was the most 
159 



THE RICHER LIFE 

beautiful vase that had ever been 
made. He had put the whole of 
his little mustard-seed soul into 
it. Then he sent it as a gift to the 
emperor. 

Whether Ching died happy after 
he had made his vase, or lived 
to a drivelling old age, really does 
not matter. The vase has lasted 
for hundreds of years, and now 
stands on a little teakwood pedestal 
in the cabinet of a wealthy collector, 
and is gazed at and admired by 
many people who do not understand, 
and by a few who do. 

Ching Wong was one of the world's 
craftsmen. He was as much a 
craftsman, in his way, as Michael- 
angelo; for craftsmanship is not 
confined to any one age nor to any 
one people. It is eternal and uni- 
versal. It was a human attribute 
160 



THE STORY OF CHING WONG 

in the days of Tubal-Cain. Crafts- 
manship is the realization of art 
for art's sake; only that phrase has 
been worn threadbare until it hardly 
serves to cover the nakedness of 
shiftless bohemianism. 
The reward of craftsmanship is the 
satisfaction of the soul in the com- 
pletion of a perfect thing, whether 
it be a chair or a cathedral, a sen- 
tence or an epic. Craftsmanship 
is one of the rarest of human virtues 
in its perfection, and one of the oldest 
and commonest in germ. True 
craftsmen are rare, but most of us 
are potential craftsmen without 
knowing it. Our souls haven't fully 
waked up. For craftsmanship is 
not confined to the making of pots 
and pictures; it extends throughout 
the whole range of the world's 
activities, wherever human creative 
force is at work. Wherever the 
161 



THE RICHER LIFE 

creative faculty is exercised for its 
own sake with a high ideal — there 
is craftsmanship. 

There is no higher ideal than that 
of the craftsman, for it is the soul 
speaking; it is the divine spark in 
us. God, indeed, is the greatest 
craftsman of all. In fact, so far 
as we may reason from what we 
see, craftsmanship is His chief at- 
tribute. Love, mercy, justice, wrath, 
— these things we have guessed at. 
All we have evidence of is craftsman- 
ship. Look about you - - look at 
the curve of a mountain range; 
at white clouds and blue sky, at a 
clump of purple asters and golden- 
rod, at a chipmunk's tail, at a pine 
tree against the winter sunset, at 
the flash of the sun on a mountain 
brook. Isn't it a bit presumptuous 
to suppose that these things were 
made for our pleasure alone? 
162 



THE STORY OF CHING WONG 

"And the earth brought forth grass, 
and the herb yielding seed after his 
kind, and the tree yielding fruit, 
whose seed was in itself, after his 
kind; and God saw that it was good." 
I do not mean to be irreverent. The 
noblest conception we have of God 
is as the Creator — which means 
Craftsman. Why does the spider 
weave that wonderful gossamer 
wheel of his so beautifully? I am 
inclined to think he has a bit of 
divine soul in him rather more, 
perhaps, than a miser or a seducer. 
It is craftsmanship, then, that our 
souls are blindly groping for,whether 
we be empire builders or dressmakers. 
To make something worth making, 
and to make it as nearly perfect as 
possible, is craftsmanship. Thus a 
good cobbler is more Godlike than 
a poor preacher. I fancy that Jesus 
of Nazareth was a good carpenter, 
163 



THE RICHER LIFE 

and Saul of Tarsus a good maker 
of tents. 

It is craftsmanship that constitutes 
the difference between a statesman 
and a politician. One builds; the 
other manipulates. It is the lack 
of craftsmanship in our modern 
financiers that makes us distrust 
them, just as we distrust petty 
barterers ; they do all for profit, noth- 
ing for accomplishment. It is the 
lack of craftsmanship that makes 
mere social prominence seem empty 
to thinking men and women. 
It is the apparent lack of craftsman- 
ship in the capitalist that antago- 
nizes the workman. I say apparent, 
for I believe there are plenty of 
capitalists who are craftsmen, and 
the sooner we folk of different occu- 
pations and degrees of wealth come 
to recognize the spirit of crafts- 
manship in one another, the sooner 
164 



THE STORY OF CHING WONG 

we shall come to understand each 
other, and the sooner class warfare 
will cease. The socialist says this 
understanding can come only 
through a levelling process — either 
violently revolutionary, or quietly 
evolutionary. I am not sure of 
that. I am inclined to think that 
this better understanding will come 
about through hidden channels of 
which the reformer and the single 
taxer and the socialist take little 
cognizance. I believe there is yet 
a more glorious day for individual- 
ism, for craftsmanship is an attri- 
bute of individuals, not of masses. 
That was Herbert Spencer's belief 
— that human progress comes 
through the activities of the world's 
chosen few — that is, the great 
craftsmen. 

All through the ages, the evolu- 
tionists tell us, the soul germ has 
165 



THE RICHER LIFE 

been pushing steadily upward to- 
ward the light. In the ant and the 
bee it has reached a high stage 
of development. Almost they are 
craftsmen. It is in man, however, 
that the highest point of develop- 
ment has been reached. He has a 
soul, we say. He aspires to more 
than food and drink. He must 
needs scratch likenesses of beasts 
on his cave walls, or he must be 
making gardens. 

I am optimistic enough to hope that 
this development has not yet 
reached its highest point, but that 
the divine spark in us will burst 
forth again and yet again in im- 
mortal flame; and men of genius 
will come when we need them most, 
to point the way, give us fresh ideals, 
teach us new craftsmanship. 
Cultivate the ideal of craftsmanship, 
and you will be making progress 
166 



THE STORY OF CHING WONG 

toward your own personal happi- 
ness. Compel yourself to under- 
stand the meaning of craftsmanship, 
place your mind in sympathy with 
it, and by that act of will you will 
be tapping an unlimited reservoir 
of unsuspected joy and peace. 
This sounds like academic psychol- 
ogy, I grant you, or New Thought, 
or Brahminism, or Christian Science 
— or nonsense. It is good, sound 
sense, for all that. This joining 
the cult of craftsmanship requires 
no sacrifice of material comforts. 
You don't have to starve for art's 
sake. You aren't obliged to become 
"queer," and so alienate yourself 
from the companionship and sym- 
pathy of e very-day folks. No public 
confession of faith is required. You 
can take the ideal of craftsmanship 
to your heart and keep it hidden, 
if you choose. It need not inter- 
167 



THE RICHER LIFE 

fere with your day's work; rather, 
it will glorify the day's work and 
make sordid tasks seem worth while. 
I know a man who has made his 
mark in the world as an apple 
grower. He is materially successful; 
by study and personal attention 
he has made as much as one thou- 
sand dollars in a season from one 
extraordinary acre. He is an ex- 
pert; he receives one hundred dollars 
from wealthy "gentleman farmers" 
for a single day's advice and super- 
vision. He is much in demand as 
a lecturer - on soils, cover crops, 
grafting, fertilizing, spraying, prun- 
ing, making new varieties, and all 
the rest of it. He is proud of his 
career. And yet it is not that 
which makes him a happy, sweet- 
minded old gentleman. It is the 
fact that he has grown the biggest, 
reddest, spiciest apples that have 
168 



THE STORY OF CHING WONG 

ever been produced in the state of 
New York. He gloats over his 
apples as Ching Wong gloated over 
his good pots. He has made no 
sacrifice of material comforts; he 
has not brought privation to wife 
or children; and yet he has satisfied 
his soul as some of our captains of 
finance cannot possibly have satis- 
fied theirs. He is a craftsman in 
apples. 

We are most of us craftsmen in some 
material or other — some in pots, 
some in apples, some in marble, some 
in pie crust, "Some with massive 
deeds and great, some with orna- 
ments of rhyme." We must work, 
whether or no. Shall our work make 
us happy or miserable? 
We are workers, you and I, and our 
compensation is, for the most part, 
inadequate. How keenly that fact 
tortures us at times! We work 
169 



THE RICHER LIFE 

to make others rich, and we deserve 
appreciation which we do not get. 
In the ideal of craftsmanship alone 
may we find due compensation. 
Do your work well, and your own 
soul will not fail to praise you. It 
will be the God in you saying, "Well 
done, thou good and faithful serv- 
ant." External appreciation is 
pleasant, but in the end it is hollow 
and ephemeral. Self-realization and 
self-satisfaction are the permanent, 
valuable rewards. I can imagine 
that Robinson Crusoe on his desert 
island had his happy moments. The 
mediaeval monk in his cell wrought 
wonderfully for the delectation of 
his own soul. Longfellow saw 
this vision when he wrote "The 
Builders," and Kipling, when he 
wrote "L'Envoi" in "The Seven 
Seas." 

That's all very well, you say, for 
170 



THE STORY OF CHING WONG 

one with the artistic temperament. 
Young Rodin nearly starved in the 
name of craftsmanship, but he was 
an artist. I am merely a worker, 
and I dislike to starve. I inhabit 
a w r orld of cold, hard facts, not 
dreams. 

You are wrong, brother. You are an 
artist, too, just as Ching Wong was 
when he made his ugly pots. Per- 
haps your soul hasn't waked up 
yet. You are still working for cash 
with which to buy rice and fish. 
That's your trouble — not cir- 
cumstances. 

Take courage, weary toiler. It may 
be that your youthful dreams never 
will be realized. Perhaps there is 
no pot of gold at the end of the rain- 
bow for you. But the rainbow is 
there — a vastly more wonderful 
and beautiful thing. Commune 
with your own soul; you will find 
171 



THE RICHER LIFE 

it jolly company. Open the win- 
dows and let in God's sunlight. 
Then make something that you 
know is good. Give your soul a 
chance. 



172 




^cPrince^ePauper^^TXe GoldeivMeari 




NCE upon a time there lived a 
prince who was very fortunate 
and very unhappy. He was the 
son of a king who, when he him- 
self was a king's son, had mar- 
ried a goose-girl after a romantic 
wooing, and the prince inherited 
certain tastes and mental twists 
from his mother that proved to 
be most upsetting. 
The prince was heir to a great 
kingdom and vast riches. One 
day he would don the ermine, 
173 



THE RICHER LIFE 

grasp the sceptre, and mount the 
golden throne where he would sit in 
state, surrounded by his counsellors, 
and receive the homage of subjects 
and ambassadors. But he had a 
plough-boy's heart in his breast, and 
he was unhappy. 

The prince was young and strong 
and handsome. His people loved 
him. In prowess with arms and 
skill in horsemanship he surpassed 
all the young men of the realm. But 
he liked not the royal forest and 
the jousting field. He had a gypsy 
heart in him, and he longed for the 
open road and the wide world. 
The prince was betrothed to a 
princess of a neighbouring kingdom. 
She was tall and fair as a lily, and 
her hair was like spun gold. She 
was so virtuous that the witch under 
the hill had never discovered a flaw 
in her character. The two kings 
174 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

had arranged the match, and the 
prince had no rival. But he had 
a troubadour's heart in him, and 
he was unhappy. 

At length he became so dissatisfied 
with his lot that he determined to 
set forth alone to see the world. 
Saddling his white mare one night, 
he muffled her feet and stole from 
the city. When the morning sun 
struck the plume on his hat he was 
far from the gates, and the dew 
was glistening on strange fields. 
As he rode along he heard singing, 
and soon he overtook a ragged 
vagabond. 

"Why do you sing?" asked the 
prince. 

"Why does the lark sing?" re- 
sponded the vagabond. "I have 
no care resting on my heart, and 
so the songs must needs come forth. " 
"How did you lose your care?" 
175 



THE RICHER LIFE 

asked the prince, dismounting from 
his white mare and walking by the 
vagabond's side. 

''I never had any/' he replied. "I 
have no home, no wife, no money, 
no duties, no destiny. Nothing is 
expected of me. No one loves me, 
and no one hates me. I have no 
thought but for one day at a time, 
and at night I sleep because I am 
tired. What is care?" 
"I don't know," replied the prince, 
thoughtfully, "but I have it. You 
are wise, I see. How can I get rid 
of my care?", 

"Change places with me," replied 
the vagabond. "Give me your 
horse and your plumed hat and your 
silken doubtlet and your well-filled 
purse, and take my shirt and staff 
and old shoes. Take my joy, and 
give me your care. I would like 
to know how it seems; I will make 
176 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

a rare adventure of it." And he 
laughed heartily. 

So the prince gave him his sword 
and doublet and purse, and set out 
on the road afoot, seeking happiness. 
When the prince's absence was dis- 
covered at the palace a great hue 
land cry were set up, but the prince 
could not be found. The king or- 
dered his royal charger, and with 
his trusted knights set out in search 
of his son, but to no avail. After 
forty days they gave him up for lost. 
When a year had rolled by the 
prince returned, footsore and bat- 
tered, a sorry-looking beggar, and 
applied for admission at the palace 
gates. They drove him away thrice, 
but he persisted. Then they brought 
the dogs to set them on him. But 
the prince's faithful hound knew 
him, and leaped joyfully upon him, 
licking his hands. 

177 



THE RICHER LIFE 

Then the prince showed the old 
gatekeeper the birthmark on his 
left shoulder, just the size and shape 
and colour of a ripe strawberry, and 
desired that the queen be told of it. 
Doubtfully, the gatekeeper sent a 
messenger to tell the queen mother, 
who came rushing out in all her 
purple robes and threw herself weep- 
ing on the prince's neck. 

So they made a great feast, for 
the prince had come back to his own. 
But soon the prince was unhappy 
again, and one day he summon- 
ed his father's oldest and wisest 
counsellor. 

"Why am I unhappy?" he asked. 
"I gave away my purse and my 
sword and my good white mare, 
but I got no joy in return. The 
stones hurt my feet, and the food 
I got sickened me. I met with 
dirty people who drove me from their 
178 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

low doors. And so I came back 
again. Now I am as I was before; 
why am I not happy?" 
The wiseacre thought a long time, 
and then he answered. 
'You are half prince and half peas- 
ant," quoth he. "If you are very 
rich the peasant in you is unhappy; 
if you are very poor the prince in 
you suffers. You must seek a 
golden mean. Your father loves 
you, and will give you whatever 
you wish. Ask him for a hill and 
a valley in the outskirts of his 
kingdom. Ask him for flocks and 
herds and honest peasants to tend 
them. Go there to live as the 
ruler of a little rural kingdom. Ask 
not for gold or for a court, only for 
those necessities which the royal 
part of you must have, and not for 
the things which a shepherd is 
happier without." 
179 



THE RICHER LIFE 

But the prince scorned this advice. 
Such a life was too tame for his 
young blood. He was loath to give 
up again the luxuries to which he 
had been born. He did not know 
that they and care were the same. 
So, shaking his head sadly, he turned 
away. 

Let us give heed to the parable. 
Most of us either are princes or are 
trying to be. We are working to heap 
up for ourselves treasures on earth, 
and the labour of it is killing us. 
We become so entangled in the 
process that we even forget what 
we are working for. We think we 
are working for a future happiness; 
we believe we are climbing toward 
a heaven of joy and repose, and we 
are only piling an Ossa on a Pelion 
of care. Sooner or later we realize 
this, every one of us. To some the 
180 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

realization comes too late. We 
have grown too old, or have become 
too inalienably devoted to the false 
quest. We have formed a habit 
that we think we cannot break. 
But for most of us it is never too 
late, if we will but think so. Don't 
you believe it? Have you despaired 
of ever finding release from the 
enthralment that you have cast 
about yourself? Listen! 
We must brush away the cobwebs 
and get down to first principles. 
In this world we must work to live. 
Even if we are born to the purple, 
we must work to live adequately. 
A worthless life is a desecration. 
Nature abhors a drone. 
Now, then, what are we living and 
working for? To gain happiness? 
To render service? Both, I sub- 
mit. Carlyle called blessedness the 
chief end of man, and he meant 
181 



THE RICHER LIFE 

that highest form of happiness that 
comes indirectly through service 
rather than through self-seeking. It is 
self -realizationbroughtabout through 
the enlargement and outspreading 
of self to include those things one 
loves and cares for. And the hap- 
piest man is he who has the largest 
circle of loves and interests all in- 
timately connected with himself. 
You will find all that in the Spen- 
cerian philosophy. 

But it is a sort of selfishness, after 
all. If we are candid we must 
admit that/ History is the record 
of the human attempt to become 
happier, with a constant increase 
and elevation in the requirements 
of happiness. 

Let us say, then, that we are living 
and working to become happier, 
and let us not lose sight of it. Then 
we are not living and working for 
182 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

money, are we? Of course not! 
Perish the thought! We are not of 
that sordid clan, you and I! We 
work for money simply as a means 
to an end. We earn money for its 
power to purchase happiness in the 
form in which we desire it most. 
Money is but a medium of ex- 
change. 

Work, money, happinesss — that is 
the cycle. 

And that is just where we are prone 
to go astray. Simple as the for- 
mula is, we become mired before 
we wallow through it. The more 
money we can earn, we say, the 
more happiness we can get. So, 
fixing our eyes on the nearer goal, 
we work for money and for the 
visible indications of its possession. 
We err here, every mother's son and 
daughter of us, to a greater or less 
extent. "Just a little more money, " 
183 



THE RICHER LIFE 

we say, "and then, ho! for happi- 
ness." And we seldom get beyond 
the first step. 

Now the point I want to make is 
this: We have built up this three- 
part cycle logically enough, and then 
we set it up as a graven image and 
worship it, forgetful of its true 
significance. And in so doing we 
have complicated life and enthroned 
the complication. What we must 
do, sooner or later, is to simplify 
life. And the only way to do that 
is to eliminate as far as possible the 
middle member of the cycle, and 
work directly for happiness — the 
highest form of happiness that our 
natures will permit. Money is but 
a medium of exchange, and the less 
We make of the medium the simpler 
life will become. 

I need not argue that we want life 

simpler. I think we have all come 

184 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

to feel that. The way the public, 
a few years ago, bought and read 
Charles Wagner's book was evidence 
of it. A thousand pities that he was 
so academic and so vague in his prac- 
tical applications. The question is, 
How can we reduce life to simpler 
terms, and so give our souls the 
chance to contemplate the beauty of 
life for a little space before we go? 
Now that the high cost of living has 
become such a vital question, es- 
pecially to those of us who live in 
cities, I find more and more people 
turning their faces country ward. 
There the cost of living is less. There 
life is simpler. There the medium 
of exchange dominates life less com- 
pletely. Every fifth man I meet 
is talking more or less definitely of 
buying a farm, and some of them 
really mean it. And heaven knows, 
we need more and better farmers. 
185 



THE RICHER LIFE 

And they are on the right track, tpo. 
Until some of us get out of town, the 
town will be too full. We can't 
all go, but some of us must, and I 
believe we who go will be the lucky 
ones. Something must be done to 
relieve the tension. Young men 
are filling the agricultural colleges, 
which are spreading education and 
uplift throughout the rural districts. 
It is a sign of the times, and one 
of the things that makes me optimis- 
tic in the face of imminent socio- 
logical and industrial upheaval. 
When the storm breaks, these edu- 
cated American farmers are going 
to be the ballast in the ship of state. 
You'll see! 

But for us it is an individual ques- 
tion, and it is the individual, ere 
and there, that is leaving the slavery 
of the shop and the office for the 
liberty of broad acres. "Back to 
186 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

the land" has become a fixed phrase 
in our language, and many a Rome- 
weary Horace is in search of a 
Sabine farm. 

Now comes the danger. The prince 
steals forth from his palace and takes 
up his life of vagabondage. Whither 
will it lead him? Through moun- 
tain waste and deep morass, un- 
questionably. We must not be too 
hasty. We must seek a golden mean. 
I have heard lately of several peo- 
ple who have steeled their hearts 
and cut loose from the city, and they 
have come to regret it. They have 
embarked on a new enterprise ill 
prepared. No man would be so 
foolish as to open a drug store or 
start a newspaper with so little 
training and capital. So these 
would-be farmers, and their poor 
wives, pass through a period of real 
hardship, for which they are not 
187 



THE RICHER LIFE 

at all fitted, and they are glad 
enough to get back again to the old 
bondage of the palace. 
I find that the back-to-the-laiid 
movement has already received a 
setback from this cause, and the 
wisest of us hesitate, to give away 
our swords and our purses and our 
good white mares. We have seen 
farms and farmers. We dislike the 
barnyard. Noisome boots and over- 
alls in the dining-room spoil our 
appetite for breakfast. We dislike 
to wash at the kitchen sink. Better 
five rooms arid a bath in the Bronx, 
say we, than a cold and lonely 
farm house at Podunk. And so 
we give up the dream and go back 
to our more or less suicidal jobs in 
town. 

I contend that these hardships are 

not necessary, and that is the burden 

of my song. Whatsoever is good, 

188 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

whatsoever is uplifting, whatsoever 
is sanitary in city life, you can take 
these with you to the farm. In 
seeking the simple life you must 
cast off the artificialities of life, 
but you need not abandon its re- 
finements. There is nothing com- 
plex or complicating about culture. 
A stable and a bath room are not 
inherently incompatible. By tak- 
ing thought, you can save yourself 
and your city-bred wife much suf- 
fering, and perhaps avoid a failure 
of the whole plan. 

I know people who have gone back 
to the farm and who have de- 
generated. I know some who are 
passing through a purgatory of dis- 
comfort and hardship. I know some 
who have utterly failed with the 
whole thing. But I know some, 
too, who are succeeding, and I mean, 
some day, to be one of them. They 

189 



THE RICHER LIFE 

have been prudent. They have not 
set forth without a loaf in their 
knapsacks. They have not ex- 
pected too much. They have been 
prepared to work — not for money, 
but for happiness, appetite, and 
blessed sleep. They, have not mis- 
taken a new kind of bondage for 
freedom. 

If you have no money at all, you 
must fight it out somehow, whether 
in country or in town. But if you 
have just a little — just a very 
little — you can make it amount 
to something in the country. An 
income of five hundred dollars a 
year is a drop in the bucket in New 
York; it is a fortune in the village 
of Farmingtown. You can buy a 
farm that will give you a living, and 
your sons after you, for the price 
of an automobile that will be scrap- 
iron in six years. 

190 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

And I for one prefer the farm. To 
stand on your own hill top, look- 
ing across your own orchard and 
meadow, with your own grain green- 
ing in the July sun, with your own 
cattle standing knee-deep in your 
own brook, with your wife singing 
in the kitchen of the little farm house 
that is your home — that is the simple 
life that satisfies ! Joy-riding on Long 
Island isn't to be compared with the 
rattle of the buggy wheels when Old 
Dobbin goes to town. 
And when winter comes, and the 
stubble-fields lie sleeping beneath 
their white mantle, there is time for 
books, and talk, and ear old friends. 
And best of all, you needn't be 
marooned among a lot of ignorant, 
hard-shelled, vulgar hayseeds. The 
city is sending its best back to the 
land, and you'll find others like 
yourself at Farmingtown. 
191 



THE RICHER LIFE 

Time and room to think, to enjoy, 
to live! Don't you hunger and 
thirst for it? Can the quest for 
gold be compared with it? 
An old chap named Abraham Cowley, 
away back in the time of Crom- 
well and Milton, said some very 
sensible things on this very subject. 
He cut loose from the city and found 
the simple life; and for those who, 
like Cowley, long for a time and room 
to cultivate their own minds as 
well as their own fields, a quotation 
may be permissible. 
Says the genial sage: "Since nature 
denies to most men the capacity 
or appetite, and fortune allows but 
to a very few the opportunities or 
possibility, of applying themselves 
wholly to philosophy, the best mix- 
ture of human affairs that we can 
make is the employments of a 
country life." 

192 



THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER 

And yet I know that many, like 
the prince in the parable, will read 
these words and turn sadly or scorn- 
fully away. 



193 




t% e Doctor ^i*</ *AeCol>bler*s Son. 



NCE upon a time there lived a 
learned doctor. He was a Doc- 
tor of Medicine, and a Doctor 
of Philosophy, and a Doctor of 
Laws, and I don't know what 
else. He was renowned through- 
out all Europe for his vast learn- 
ing, and in some quarters he 
was thought to be a wizard. He 
could make water turn to blood; 
he could name the stars and 
foretell an eclipse; he could 
read books written in strange 
194 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

tongues. Some folk believed he 
could turn dross into gold if he would. 
I don't know where there has lived 
so learned a man before or since. 
To the doctor's laboratory one day 
came Hans, the cobbler, and his 
son Fritz. 

"Learned doctor," quoth Hans, who 
was a man of few words, "I bring 
my son Fritz to ask if thou wilt make 
a scholar of him." 

The doctor looked at the big, tanned 
fellow and smiled. 

"Dost want to become a scholar?" 
he asked. 

But Fritz only twirled his cap and 
stared, and answered never a word. 
"Nay," said Hans, sadly, "he de- 
sires not to be a scholar." 
"Hath he no skill with tools?" 
asked the doctor. 

"Oh, yes," answered the cobbler, 
"he hath skill." 

195 



THE RICHER LIFE 

"Then why not make a cobbler of 
him? The world needs good cobblers 
more than it needs poor scholars. " 
"I have tried," answered Hans, 
"but he will not work at my trade. 
He must needs be ever running 
about the country, poking his head 
into all sorts of out-of-the-way 
places, and learning nothing of any 
value to himself or to me. If thou 
wouldst take him here, he would 
do thy bidding for fear of thy dis- 
pleasure, and he might become a 
scholar after all. I can do nothing 
with him." 

So the doctor took Fritz aside and 
questioned him, but could not dis- 
cover that the lad possessed more 
than half a man's wits. 
"I fear," said he to the father, at 
length, "that I cannot make a 
scholar of thy son. He cannot even 
read, save with great labour." 
196 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

"Then let him be thy servant," 
pleaded the father. "He shall fetch 
thy wood and sweep thy floors and 
wash thy vessels. He can do these 
things handily. Perchance he will 
learn a thing or two in a year. I 
will buy his food and clothing. He 
need be paid nothing. " 
The doctor was not an unkind man, 
and he looked with favour upon the 
lad's broad back and strong hands. 
"Very well/ 5 he said at length, "I 
will take him, but I will not promise 
to teach him anything." 
So the old cobbler departed well con- 
tent, and Fritz took up his duties 
in the doctor's house. 
For a year he cared for the doctor's 
laboratory and books, and his fear 
of his master's displeasure kept him 
at his work, though often his gaze 
would steal out of the window to 
follow the flight of some meadow 
197 



THE RICHER LIFE 

lark, and when the wind blew over 
the hills his heart went with it. He 
was cleanly and careful, and a model 
servant, but in all the year he learned 
none of the doctor's wisdom. Books 
meant nothing to him, and the retorts 
and test tubes and fu naces were 
but so many silly toys. The doc- 
tor soon despaired of teaching the 
lad anything, and came to look 
upon him almost as one of the dumb 
animals. 

When the year was up the doctor 
prepared to go on a long journey, 
and he sent Fritz back to his father. 
But the old cobbler would have none 
of him, and brought him again to 
the doctor's house. 
"Pray keep him another year," 
pleaded Hans. "Perchance he is 
just beginning to learn." 
"But I am about to go on a long 
journey, " protested the doctor. 
198 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

''Take him with thee," said Hans. 
"He will carry thy goods and chat- 
tels, and serve thee at the inns and 
on the way." 

So at last the doctor consented, 
and in due time he and Fritz set 
out upon their journey. 
After they had been gone many 
days, they were passing through a 
dense wood one afternoon when 
they were set upon by robbers, who 
took away their horses, stole the 
doctor's purse, stripped them of all 
their possessions, and left them 
alone in the wood. 
Then it was that great fear came 
upon the learned doctor — fear and 
perplexity. Deprived of his black 
cloak, he shivered in the wind. Thel 
nearest town was miles away, and 
they had no horses. 
"What shall we do, my master?" 
asked Fritz. 

199 



THE RICHER LIFE 

But the doctor only shuddered, and 
cast frightened glances over his 
shoulder. In all his learning he 
found no power to cope with this 
situation. All his riches availed him 
nothing now, and fame reaches not 
to the heart of a lonely wood. 
Finally Fritz began to lose patience. 
He could not understand the doc- 
tor's indecision. 

"Come/' said he: "shall we not 
set out toward the town? We will 
perish if we remain here." 
The doctor answered never a word, 
but when Fritz * led the way he 
followed. He had no idea of his 
whereabouts, he had become so 
confused in the scuffle, but Fritz 
glanced at the setting sun and set 
forth directly. 

Presently he heard the doctor giving 

forth little moans, and, turning, 

he beheld him limping painfully. 

200 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

The robbers had stolen the doctor's 
riding boots with their silver spurs. 
When the robbers had set upon them 
Fritz had hastily concealed his knife; 
this he now drew forth. Seeking 
out a certain tree, he stripped it of 
bark; then he found pliant, thong- 
like roots at the foot of a certain 
shrub, and with these he deftly 
fashioned rude shoes which he bound 
upon his master's feet. 
By and by they became hungry, but 
their wallets were gone, and they 
had nothing to eat. Fritz bade his 
master rest upon a fallen tree, and 
turned off into the forest. After 
a little time he returned with his 
cap full of berries, and a pocket 
full of roots and herbs that were 
good to eat, and clear spring water 
in a vessel fashioned of bark. The 
doctor fell upon the food greedily, 
and soon assuaged hunger and thirst. 
201 



THE RICHER LIFE 

The moon came up early, and Fritz 
led the way briskly along the dimly 
lighted path. But the doctor was 
not accustomed to this mode of 
travel, and at last he sank down 
exhausted. There was nothing to 
do but to spend the night in the 
woods, and the air was frosty. So 
Fritz made for them a bed of boughs 
and a coverlet of leaves, and the 
doctor laid him down to sleep. 
But Fritz knew there would be wild 
beasts prowling about, so he set 
himself the task of making a fire. 
After a long search he found a 
flinty stone and a handful of dry 
bark fibre. By striking sparks from 
the stone with the blade of his knife 
he at last kindled a fire, and, piling 
it high with fagots, he lay down be- 
side the doctor. 

In the morning Fritz fetched more 

food and water, and they set forth 

202 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

again. After a long and toilsome 
march they at last came out upon 
the highway, and a passing farmer 
took them to town in his cart. 
When finally the doctor reached the 
house of his friends he once more 
became the master and Fritz the 
servant; but the lad would have 
no more of it. 

"I care not for thy learning, sir, 55 
quoth he. "Do none of thy books 
teach thee to find food or make fire? 
Surely these are the first things for 
a man to know. I will hie me back 
to the house of my father." 
So saying, he started off down the 
road singing — the witless knave — 
with never a penny in his purse. 

It is easy to misconstrue the moral of 
this tale. There are not a few people 
nowadays who, preaching the gospel 
of the simple life, are riding their 



THE RICHER LIFE 

hobby too fast and too far. Time 
was when each family was dependent 
upon its own efforts and the fruit- 
fulness of the soil for food, raiment, 
and all the necessities of life. Coun- 
try folk raised their own wool and 
wove it into clothing for themselves. 
They grew their own wheat, ground 
it, and made it into bread. There 
was much to be desired in that life. 
It made for self-reliance, sturdiness 
of character, redness of blood, keen- 
ness of eye, skill with the hands, 
readiness of wit. But it was not all 
ideal. 

It is well that society has become 
better organized. It is well that 
we have grown richer in the comforts 
of life. It is well for the weak that 
the strong must help them. It is 
a mistake to seek the path back to 
savagery. 

We have gone too far, however, 
204 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

and there is a reaction apparent 
on every hand. It is a wholesome, 
salutary thing, this turning of the 
face back toward primitive sim- 
plicity. Only we should take care 
not to let the pendulum swing too 
far in the other direction. 
The trend of modern life — the 
specialized career, the life of cities 
— is at once narrowing and compli- 
cating. Hence the movement back 
to the farm, and its simpler, broader 
life. We are coming to believe that 
only with life near the soil and the 
sources of things can come true in- 
dependence, and there are still some 
of us who thirst for liberty. Only 
before we cut loose we must be 
sure that we are not acting on blind 
impulse; we must understand the 
situation. 

We have become educated now to 

things that our fathers cheerfully 

205 



THE RICHER LIFE 

did without. Our needs are partly 
the same, partly different. To trans- 
plant us bodily into colonial New 
England would mean a sad awaken- 
ing for many of us. 
We are better off without wealth 
and enervating luxury. We do not 
need costly furnishings in our homes. 
We do not need half the things we 
have. But we do need time and 
opportunity for culture; we need 
good food; we need comfortable beds; 
we need sanitary plumbing; we need 
warm houses; we need some of the 
refinements of life; we need neigh- 
bours who live as we do. 
These things, however, do not de- 
stroy the simplicity of life. Rather, 
they give us the opportunity to 
make life richer and better. We 
do not want to degenerate ; we merely 
want to choose our own line of 
progress, and not have it all mapped 
206 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

out for us and restricted by the 
conditions of commercial and city 
life. Grant me these things, and I 
am with you, heart and soul, in the 
journey back to the land and the 
quest for the simple life. 
I want to make my position clearly 
understood on this point, lest I be 
accused of making a hero of Fritz. 
He was more or less of a worthless 
booby, after all. One is not often 
lost in the woods and in the progress 
of civilization one doctor is worth 
a hundred Fritzes. But Fritz didn't 
need to be such an ignoramus, and 
the doctor didn't need to be such a 
worthless nincompoop in an emer- 
gency. Let us be doctors if we will; 
our ambition is sure to lead us in 
that direction. But if we neglect 
the Fritz side of us we are deliber- 
ately narrowing our lives and dwarf- 
ing our souls. 

207 



THE RICHER LIFE 

Now one thing that country life 
does for a man or a woman, and 
especially for a boy or a girl, is to 
train the natural, God-given facul- 
ties and make life better worth the 
living. There are plenty of suc- 
cessful business men to-day who 
couldn't for the life of them plant 
a row of corn, or build a fire of wet 
wood, or put up a creditable shelf 
in the pantry. 

They are like our great lummux of 
a cat. We put him in a closet with 
a mouse the other day, and he sim- 
ply sat and stared at it. He's 
an affectionate fellow and a fine 
parlour ornament, but his economic 
value is minus. I fear he would 
starve if shut up in a barn full of 
mice. 

That is why fewer men retire from 

business than formerly. Not only 

are they not satisfied with a com- 

208 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

petence, but their intellectual re- 
sources are often quite undevel- 
oped. Take them away from their 
desks, and they are at a loss what to 
do with themselves. At the age of 
fifty they have learned but one way 
to use eyes, hands, and brain. 
Take them out of their little rut 
and they are like the doctor in the 
woods. What a commentary on 
modern life, that a man is as de- 
pendent upon business as an opium 
fiend upon his drug! As for the 
society woman, the club man, the 
mere pleasure seeker, their cases 
are not worth our consideration. 
And it shows in the children, too — 
pretty, little, well-mannered, well- 
dressed ladies and gentlemen, grow- 
ing up in the midst of an artificial 
civilization that makes them as 
self-reliant as hothouse roses. For 
the sake of the children, if for no 
209 



THE RICHER LIFE 

other reason, give heed to the par- 
able of the doctor and Fritz. 
In fact, it's very largely an edu- 
cational question. Your modern 
business man has been brought up 
to the life he leads. Give the boys 
and girls a chance to learn something 
besides compound interest and pen- 
manship. Manual training is a good 
thing; I am inclined to think it 
should be put near the head of the 
list. It teaches a boy that his 
hands are useful. 

Elbert Hubbard said the other day, 
in his topsy-turvy way, that if the 
rest of mankind didn't adopt the 
educational methods of Tuskegee, 
we would soon find ourselves working 
for the coloured race; and there's 
an element of truth in it. It is well 
for the king's son to learn a trade. 
But better than Tuskegee, or man- 
ual training, or any of the systems, 
210 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

is the natural education that comes 
from spending the play time of life 
where children are thrown on their 
own resources to a large extent. 
The country boy unquestionably 
learns many things that are a closed 
book to his city cousin. 
I do not advise any man or woman 
to cut loose hastily from long- 
established habits and the comforts 
of city life. Country life is not a 
panacea. There are plenty of un- 
happy people living in the country. 
But for many who are discontented 
with the thraldom of Lhe office, 
who are fretted by the constrict- 
ing influence of city life, who feel 
within them stifled natural impulses 
struggling for expression,who hunger 
and thirst for greater liberty and 
the richer life, here may be found 
the way out. 

For the activities and interests of 
211 



THE RICHER LIFE 

country life do open the eyes and 
exercise the hands. Here are all 
the forces of nature to be daily ob- 
served. Here is work to be done — 
work for one's self and not for a cor- 
poration — a whole work and not a 
piece of work — work that shows 
results and that is its own justifica- 
tion and greatest joy — work that 
stimulates body and soul. In short, 
it seems to me, country life offers a 
better opportunity than city life for 
the functioning of the whole being. 
Unhappiness often comes through 
our incapacity to cope with the 
unexpected problems of life as they 
arise, and any course of living which 
keeps all our senses and powers 
active, alert, and in training makes 
for happiness. Thus has the spirit 
of craftsmanship developed among 
men forced to earn their bread 
through skill with the hands, and 
212 



THE COBBLER'S SON 

craftsmanship has always been a 
mighty power in the elevation of 
mankind. 

The time may come when, volun- 
tarily or involuntarily, you may be 
thrown on your own resources. You 
may be deprived of money, old 
occupations, old companions. With a 
mind still fresh and receptive, with 
eyes open to the multifold interests of 
the natural world, with hands trained 
to work, you need not degenerate 
into a malcontent, your soul need not 
dry up. And it is never too early or 
too late to begin the training. 
To see with the eyes, to do with 
the hands, to understand with the 
heart, to reason with the mind, 
these the simpler and more primi- 
tive forms of life compel us to do, 
and in the doing of them we secure 
a more complete development, round 
out our souls, enrich our lives. 
213 





NCE upon a time there was 

a little boy who believed 

in Santa Claus. Why he 

thus believed he did not 

know. When one is a small 

boy one finds it easier to 

believe in things than not. 

He did not inquire as to 

the reason for the good 

saint's existence. He did 

not wonder why Santa 

Claus should choose to be so 

214 



A BOY AND SANTA GLAUS 

generous on one particular day. 
Cause and effect were matters of 
small importance compared with 
the net results of sleds and Noah's 
arks. When Christmas morning 
came, and the sunlight streaming in 
through frosted window panes woke 
the little boy, he made a dash for the 
mantel where his stocking was hung. 
There were the jumping-jacks and 
the Christmas candy, just where 
he knew they would be — irre- 
futable evidence of the midnight 
visit of the good white saint. Faith 
in things not seen is in little danger 
so long as the evidence of things 
hoped for fails us not. The whole 
situation suited the little boy, and 
he believed in Santa Claus. 
But he was a very inquisitive small 
boy, and though the bigger mystery 
of Santa Claus troubled him not at 
all, he was a bit perplexed by cer- 
215 



THE RICHER LIFE 

tain material details. He observed 
that there was no real fireplace in 
the house. A scientific turn of 
mind was his by inheritance, and 
forced him to pursue his investi- 
gations. At length he formulated 
the important question: How did 
Santa Claus get in? The grown-ups 
(they were unusually clever for 
grown-ups, it seems) told him that 
Santa Claus could make himself 
very small at will, and came in 
through the draughts of the kitchen 
range, after the fire went out. This 
proved a satisfactory solution of the 
problem for a time, as it did not 
occur to the small boy to inquire 
whether the grown-ups always 
allowed the fire to go out on the 
night before Christmas, though he 
was a bit puzzled as to how any saint, 
even a collapsible saint, could drag a 
large sled through a small stovepipe. 
216 



A BOY AND SANTA CLAUS 

Alas! the small boy was born in a 
scientific and materialistic age, and 
the spirit of investigation was upon 
him. He could not let the matter 
drop. He made an exhaustive 
study of it, and one by one scented 
out the flaws in the argument. He 
took notice of the hesitation of the 
women grown-ups in answering his 
questions, and the false notes in the 
facetious remarks of the men grown- 
ups. He observed the smile of pat- 
ronizing superiority on his older 
sister's face. He began to doubt, 
and doubt is the beginning of 
knowledge. 

Before many years had passed he 
had run the question down, and the 
grown-ups, finding themselves cor- 
nered, were forced to admit that 
there was no such thing as Santa 
Claus. 

I was that little boy. Ah, well I 
217 



THE RICHER LIFE 

remember how it seemed that my 
heart would break when I learned 
the appalling truth. I left the un- 
sympathetic company of obtuse 
grown-ups and threw myself down 
on the sofa in another room, and, 
turning my face to the wall, I wept 
bitterly. I had lost something that 
day that can never be replaced. 

I am not at all in sympathy with 
those who think it a sin to perpetuate 
what they are pleased to refer to as 
the Santa Claus lie. Personally, 
I must confess to a feeling of small- 
ness and awe when I stand before 
a child who honestly believes in 
Santa Claus. And yet I fear that 
his hold upon us is weakening. 
The age of fable has passed; must 
old St. Nicholas go too? 
This growing scorn for delightful 
unrealities gives me some concern, 
218 



A BOY AND SANTA CLAUS 

for it is an indication of a psycho- 
logical change in the human race 
that I do not like to contemplate. 
One by one the myths of childhood 
vanish. Bogie-men and fairy god- 
mothers gradually lose their power 
over us. One by one the myths 
of man depart, and Pan lies low 
beneath our hurrying feet. We have 
put our faith in a god of gold and 
steel, and Phoebus no longer rides 
upon the sunset. 

We are a practical people, and we 
glory in it. We waste not our ener- 
gies in vain dreaming of things that 
may not be. We have risen above 
that foolishness. We are after tan- 
gible results, and we get them. 
But, after all, are tangible results 
all that the soul craves? May we 
not be degenerating into mere men 
of prose and calculation? How 
long will there be among us real 
219 



THE RICHER LIFE 

children and real poets? Where 
now is the poet who can invent a 
myth, or the child who can believe 
in one? "Alice in Wonderland/' 
I believe, was the last great myth- 
ology. Even "Peter Pan" did not 
wholly convince us. 
"We have played Jack Horner with 
our earth/' says James Russell Low- 
ell, lamenting in his "Journal/ 5 "till 
there is never a plum left in it/' 
thereby implying, I presume, that 
each iconoclastic scientist saith in 
his stony heart, "Lo, what a brave 
boy am I!" 

The best of our poets have felt 
alarm at this systematic and pro- 
gressive disillusioning of the world. 
Thus Poe, to Science: 

"Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? 
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood 
To seek a shelter in some happier star? 

220 



A BOY AND SANTA CLAUS 

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from the flood, 
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me 
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?" 

And thus Wordsworth: 

"I'd rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 

It is not the disbelief in these old 
myths that brings pain; it is the 
destruction of belief, the breaking 
down of the idols. It may be fun, 
but it is short-sighted and silly. I 
believe I would sooner perjure my- 
self than be the one to tell a child 
that there is no such thing as Santa 
Claus. And if your brother believes 
in the power of prayer, you are a 
knave if you attempt to shatter his 
faith. This iconoclasm has gone far 
enough. Let us build us new idols 
221 



THE RICHER LIFE 

if we can; at least let us destroy no 
more old ones. 

And, speaking of Christmas, has it 
ever occurred to you that we may 
perhaps be doing ourselves and pos- 
terity immeasurable injury by for- 
getting the beauty of the Story that 
the day is supposed to commemorate? 
But we cannot hope to rebuild the 
faith of the world in myth and fairy 
lore. The day of miracles has 
passed. People don't read poetry 
any more. People don't pray any 
more. This is the age of specializa- 
tion, and those of us who want our 
souls to grow must fight always 
against the tendency of our lives 
to narrow down to a single channel. 
For every man there lies a rut ready 
to receive him. 

This is the trend of the times, and 
it will take patience and much 
united energy to combat it. The 



A BOY AND SANTA CLAUS 

task may be too big for us, but we 
may be able to do something to pre- 
vent our own lives from becoming en- 
tirely hardened. And that is what 
makes this thing worth talking about. 
The most materialistic old curmud- 
geon of us all sometimes looks back 
with regretful longing toward the 
fresh, unspoiled, unsophisticated, 
wondering days of childhood. In- 
deed, I fancy that some of our mod- 
ern men and women have reason 
to indulge in some of this regretful 
retrospection from about the age of 
twelve. We envy our earlier selves, 
and we regret the loss of those very 
things that we have struggled so 
valiantly to grow away from. 
What is it that makes childhood 
so alluring? What is it in the old 
memories that haunts us? Why 
is it that those halcyon hours come 
never more? 

223 



THE RICHER LIFE 

We have been growing old too fast. 
We have been losing that freshness 
of interest in all things, that mental 
alertness, that made us as children, 
that made earlier peoples, so differ- 
ent from what we are now. Until 
we regain, by an effort of the will, 
somewhat of this childlike spirit, 
we shall continue to plod along, 
with half of our minds working over- 
time and the other half asleep. 
For one thing, we live too much in 
cities these days. Cities are man- 
ufactured out of aterial ingre- 
dients. Their steel and concrete 
lives enchain our souls. Myths 
were never born in cities, but in 
groves and by the sea. It is there 
that the imagination is stimulated; 
there is no such thing as Pan in 
Wall Street. 

Do you remember how you used to 

lie awake, after they had put you to 

224 



A BOY AND SANTA CLAUS 

bed, and weave romances about 
yourself? Do you remember the 
countless Indians you slew when you 
were a little boy, or the fairy princes 
that came to woo you when you were 
a little girl? Now when you lie 
awake o' nights, you think of busi- 
ness, don't you? Have you ever 
made an effort to do otherwise? 
Have you ever tried to put that part 
of your mind to sleep by waking 
up the other part — the old child 
part that knew how to " pretend?" 
I have, and I tell you it pays. I 
have learned to turn my mind de- 
liberately to a dream I have of a farm 
in Massachusetts, where I and One 
Other stand amid our blossoming 
apple trees and survey the land that 
is ours. The sound of a cowbell 
is blown faintly from over the hill, 
above which fleecy clouds are lazily 
drifting. Our dog is dashing madly 
225 



THE RICHER LIFE 

about the stone wall on the fancied 
scent of a woodchuck. Our chick- 
ens are busying themselves about 
their manifold duties. Our Neigh- 
bour Jones is driving by to town, 
and is waving a salute with his whip. 
Our farmhouse nestles beneath its 
lofty elms, the picture of content. 
Oh, it pays to dream of it when the 
day's work is done, whether there 
be any substance to the dream or not. 
I don't believe there is one of us so 
steeped in the cares of middle age 
that we cannot break the chains 
if we will. If we will — that's the 
point. Most of us don 't even think 
about doing it. We know that 
something is wrong with our lives, 
but we don 't stop to study out what 
it is. But if we will only stop to 
consider, we shall see that it is pos- 
sible to make our lives richer by 
training our minds to be more elastic 
226 



A BOY AND SANTA CLAUS 

and our imaginations livelier. The 
desk-ridden man of fifty, whose 
joints are growing stiff and whose 
circulation is becoming defective, 
can renew his youth and limber up 
marvellously by a persistent appli- 
cation of the golf cure. He can do 
the same with his mind — if he will. 
For after all this is a life of illusions, 
only now we have substituted middle- 
aged illusions for those of childhood. 
Your idea of your own importance 
is an illusion. Your idea of the im- 
portance of your work is another. 
Your Monday morning blues are as 
much the result of illusion as was 
your Saturday morning ecstasy 
some thirty or forty years ago. Oh, 
those happy days of childhood, 
when we believed in Santa Claus! 
Let them come once more, once 
more! Let us relearn the art of 
playing. Let us relearn the art of 
227 



THE RICHER LIFE 

imagining. Let us regain a little 
of the old simplicity. 
We moved our household a little 
while ago, and as we overhauled our 
possessions we came upon many 
things that awakened memories. 
There were presents that we gave 
and received on Christmases gone 
by. There were humble gifts of the 
days when the pennies meant even 
more than they do now — gifts that 
meant sacrifice for love — gifts that 
fell far short of what we wished we 
could afford; they were the best we 
could do. I wonder what it was 
about those old Christmas presents 
that made the tears come. I fancy 
it was the awakened memory of a 
time when every thing meant so 
much and was so tremendously 
appreciated. And then and there 
we registered a prayer that we might 
never become so rich that Christmas 
228 



A BOY AND SANTA CLAUS 

presents would no longer mean sac- 
rifice. It is that simplicity of mind, 
that appreciativeness of the good 
that comes, that make us love "Mrs. 
Wiggs" and the "Five Little Pep- 
pers"; and if the day should ever 
come when that spirit has departed 
from our Christmases, it will be a sad- 
der day, a thousand times, than the 
one on which I lost my Santa Claus. 



OCT 21 I9»l 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



OCT 21 19' I 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




00057510^3 



I 



